Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!RICHTER.MIT.EDU!krowitz From: krowitz@RICHTER.MIT.EDU (David Krowitz) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo Subject: Re: SR10 doesn't have /lib/gmrlib ... ??? Message-ID: <8811171620.AA05847@richter.mit.edu> Date: 17 Nov 88 16:20:54 GMT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 104 A few things ... I'm not talking about Unix calls returning AEGIS system info. I'm talking about Fortran I/O statements that used to be able to make use of the AEGIS system info, and have now been shorn of that value-added feature; thereby forcing run-of-the-mill Fortran programmers to deal with the AEGIS OS calls in order to do relatively simple operations. I could compile a long list of what features have been broken recently (ie. since 9.7.0 was released) including the fact that even the IOS calls can not (in some circumstances) distinguish between a Fortran output file written as a sequential file and one written as a direct access file. If someone who has 10 years of system programming experience is having trouble getting the new system to do certain previously simple operations, how do you think our graduate students are making out? These people are not EE/CS students! Our (Scott, myself, Casey, and others) main complaint is this: APOLLO HAS CHANGED OUR SYSTEM LICENSES UNILATERALLY AND NOT TOLD US, THE SALES FORCE, OR THE FIELD SERVICE OFFICES ABOUT IT UNTIL WE ALREADY HAD THE SOFTWARE IN HOUSE! My field service office manager just found out yesterday that "Chelmsford has not been able to resolve the licensing issue on DEX, so they have authorized us to give out the password to our customers" (to paraphrase a bit). From what he said, it sounds like Chelmsford intended to unbundle the diagnostics, but is now having second thoughts. The fact that DEX tells you that you need a license to run the software (not that you need to call your field service office) tends to support this view. In any case, Apollo has not been up-front about this issue, even with their own field service personnel. About the availability of run-time licenses ... are you sure about those products other than 2D GMR? Our salesman, whose office is in the Chelmsford headquarters, wasn't. He is still looking into it for me (I called him two days ago). The first we heard about the runtime libraries *not* being available, was after we got our shipment of SR10 (two weeks ago). It would not be quite so bad if what you say is true. But then again, why can't Apollo simply tell us that we needed to order seperate media at the same time we put in our order for the OS? Why couldn't they us (tell us) that SR10 could not be loaded across the network onto a freshly INVOL'd disk? They sent me a set of floppies as boot media for SR10 and a set of magtapes to load the system from. This is not too unreasonable since you can't boot from magtape, and it would take a horendous number of floppies to hold the OS. The problem is that my magtape drive is on a DSP80 -- which doesn't (and can't) have a floppy drive -- and my DN3000's don't (and can't) have a magtape attached. I do have a DN560 with a cartridge drive and a multibus (which could hold the magtape interface), but that machine contains our master registry, so I can't do the intial load of SR10 onto it (plus the fact that I don't have the bootable cartridge). None of the restrictions on loading SR10 were made available to me until I opened my box of tapes -- AND I TOOK THE STUPID 'TRANSITION TO SR10' CLASS WHEN IT WAS OFFERED! Now I am waiting for another shipment of cartridges so I can try this again. More unaswered questions ... what about my development licenses? I bought my nodes when 2D GMR was bundled with the OS. Presumably, I still own development licenses for 2D GMR. Is there a different set of media that I have to order to get the insert files? Do I have to have 2D GMR under maintenace contract to do this, or can I simply re-order media from time to time? I bought some of my nodes back when a 3D GMR license was bundled with the OS and paid for at least one set of media and several sets of manuals. When 3D GMR was unbundled from the OS we did not take out a seperate maintenance contract on it because it wasn't being used. Can I now put it under contract (do I still own licenses for those machine) ? Can I simply re-order media for 3D GMR? Our salesman doesn't know, and has not yet been able to find out. Part of the problem is that he's being hit all at once from all of his customers because this is the first time that any of us have heard about the changes. My field service manager told me yesterday that he had just gotten a notice saying that since we were a university customer we would only have to pay the 1-node maintenance price for C, FTN, Pascal, DSEE, DPAK, and whatever else is on the list of products that university customers get bundled licenses for rather than the 25-node maintenance price (we will have 25 nodes shortly). Can you confirm this? My salesman hadn't heard of this yet. This would be a lot more useful than a buy-30-get-1-free offer. I don't buy machines 30 at a time, I don't even buy them 10 at a time. I do buy them 2 or 3 at a time, and over half of the ADUS university SIG members that we polled at the ADUS conference are similar to us -- independent research groups that each buy a couple of machines off of their seperate research contracts and then tie them into a single network. Software licensing and maintenance, which affects the entire group, is a lot more important then deals on hardware that we can't afford at any price. The major point is: we don't know what is going on. Our normal contacts (sales and service) don't know what is going on. The people running the SR10 transition classes don't know what is going on (they couldn't even tell us whether or not we could run backups from our DSP80 [which has the tape drive], just that the DSP80 could not run SR10 and would have to stay at Sr9.7). I'm being shipped software that I can't load, that does not have all of the components that I'm currently using (and currently paying maintenance on!), that will not run well on over 1/3 of the machines currently in my network (and which have no upgrade path), and no one at Apollo has been able to give me a clear picture of what is going on. I'm getting bits and pieces from various different contacts, some of them supporting each other, and others contradicting each other. How do you expect me to feel about this? -- David Krowitz krowitz@richter.mit.edu (18.83.0.109) krowitz%richter@eddie.mit.edu krowitz%richter@athena.mit.edu krowitz%richter.mit.edu@mitvma.bitnet (in order of decreasing preference)