OpenVMS - OpenVMS Hobbyist Program

OpenVMS Hobbyist Program

Despite being a proprietary commercial operating system, in 1997 OpenVMS and a number of layered products were made available free of charge for hobbyist, non-commercial use as part of the OpenVMS Hobbyist Program. Since then, several companies producing OpenVMS software have made their products available under the same terms, such as Process Software and MVP Systems.

As of 2006, the time required to obtain a hobbyist license was approximately one week from start to finish; from registration with a user group through acquisition of licenses and media. Hobbyist CD media is available for US$30, including international shipping. No anonymous FTP software downloads are available to hobbyists.

In 2011, HP staff took over the administration of the Hobbyist licences. Registration was simplified (although not fully automatic) and remains zero cost. The process from registering to receiving Product Authorisation Keys may take only a few hours at best. Software kits for operating system and layered products are available on request at zero cost via ftp download (again this process is not fully automatic and requires authorisation by HP Hobbyist Program staff).

More information on the hobbyist program can be found at http://www.vmshobbyist.org/ and http://www.OpenVMS.org/. A number of hobbyist systems are open to the public, including the Deathrow Cluster.

Poetry Hacklab provides telnet and ssh access (username and password is luther) to two VAX/VMS machines located at the Freaknet Computer Museum.