[Simh] SIMH future releases / Sourceforge project

[Armistead, Jason]

Previously, Nigel Horne<njh at bandsman.co.uk> wrote:

>> and SIMH, originally, was not "open source" in the sense that any 
>> responsible programmer could contribute.
>> The quality of the software and the ultimate decision on released 
>> functionality was always in the hands of Bob S.
>> And a mighty fine job he did!

And then later, Wilm Boerhout wrote:

> This discussion is not (was not originally) where it's stored (although 
> others above have pointed to viable alternatives) but who is 
> responsible: Bob Supnik or the "open source community". I vote for Bob.

Just to be perfectly clear, I am a HUGE fan of Bob Supnik's work on SIMH.  Booting OpenVMS on SIMH still brings a grin to my face when I think back about wrestling with a shiny new MicroVAX 2000 and loading MicroVMS 4.5B from about 80 floppy disks back in 1989.  Bob's (largely single-handed) vision and dedication is what brought SIMH and the retro-computing it allows us all to enjoy, to the point where it is today.

Having said that, I also don't want to see SIMH become stagnant if Bob's available time to devote to SIMH may become (or perhaps already is) limited.  And I don't want to see multiple forked versions of the code start to spring up because people are impatient waiting for patches to be incorporated in the mainline, or for their favorite new whiz-bang OS to be supported as a host.  I am not voting "against Bob", but rather, my vote is "for SIMH" *and* for maintaining it to the same high standard as Bob intended.  If that means having a core team that ensures Bob's blueprint is followed, fantastic.  If Bob wants to tell us all to "take a hike", I've got to respect that too.

Bob, if you're out there reading this thread, your devoted SIMH fans would love to hear your thoughts !!!

Regards
Jason