OpenMPE gathers votes, challenges

Independent group brings on new board, faces old effort to woo help from HP

While HP 3000 customers spoke out in this month’s OpenMPE elections, the community waited to hear from an overdue voice on homesteading matters: HP’s.

The vendor had promised to release a roadmap of its timetable to help homesteading customers, a communiqué HP first said it would deliver by the end of January, and then in February. The tardy HP response was a key issue in an election where every candidate won. Five of the six volunteers running for board positions were elected. After the vote, the board named the sixth candidate to a just-vacated post when another director resigned.

By the time the OpenMPE elections closed in early April, HP had not reported to the community, outrunning a deadline it has set and re-set. The latest promise was for an April 9 revelation, appropriately on Good Friday.

HP 3000 customers who are still deciding what to do about HP’s pull-out from the platform — by some estimates, as many as half of the companies using the 3000 — are being stalled by the lack of HP’s advice.

“It’s time to act now,” said Zelik Schwartzman, who manages MPE manufacturing applications for makeup and fragrance maker Estee Lauder. “HP, give us what we truly need, not what you say we need.”

Paul Meszaros, president of datacenter solutions vendor ORBiT Software USA, said the delays on HP’s part are having an impact on customers’ decisions. He added that HP doesn’t appear to have much incentive yet to agree to license MPE source to a third party.

“Every year that nothing happens, people have to make their decisions,” Meszaros said. “I really don’t see what HP’s motivation would be to do any of what OpenMPE is asking.”

Two new voices joined the OpenMPE board through the election. John Burke, an independent HP 3000 consultant, MPE Forum member, Interex SIG leader and HP 3000 columnist; and Steven Suraci, president of MPE/HP 3000 support provider and HP 3000 and HP 9000 reseller Pivital Solutions, both earned elected spots on the board.

Alan Tibbets of Strobe Data, the company working on an HP 3000 emulator product, was named to the board after the election. Tibbets will work in the remaining year of the term of Ted Ashton, who resigned citing increased classroom workloads in his academic career.

Weary of delay

The incumbent directors of the OpenMPE board, a group that wants to develop and distribute MPE/iX releases after HP’s support ends in 2006, spoke out during the election in criticizing HP’s delay. “They are late in upholding their promises to us and all members,” said John Wolff, the incumbent vice-chair of the OpenMPE board.

Wolff, one of the three incumbents who took second terms through the election, gave customers reason to believe there is news to report from HP. But the board could not communicate any news before the elections closed April 6. On March 4 the board members agreed to sign a Confidential Disclosure Agreement with HP, a document to replace the informal gag rule the board has followed with one exception.

Burke had said one of his first actions after being elected would be to move that the board strike down the confidential disclosure agreement between HP and OpenMPE.

“My first action will be a resolution to rescind the [disclosure agreement] pending renegotiation,” Burke said. “Two things are required: a termination date and a quid pro quo.” He added OpenMPE’s bylaws are unclear on when its directors’ terms expire, “so it could be argued that any actions taken in March are illegal.”

OpenMPE’s vice-chair disagreed. “In spite of a pending election process, the members of the board remain as full voting members of the board until they are officially replaced by election results or they formally resign,” Wolff said in a message to the OpenMPE mailing list. “Whatever we know is not something we can reveal publicly. Since the information was given to us as confidential and is HP’s information, it is up to HP to publish it, which they said they would do — so the ball has been in their court.”

By the end of the election period, the board could only say that “HP has funded a project to explore this concept without predicting any particular result. We see this as a positive step.”

Responding to a report

That bit of information about HP’s funding was part of a lengthy board reply to the vendor posted on two Internet mailing lists. The board’s 1,800-word letter responded to a Computerworld March 22 report. The article stated that HP’s 3000 business manager Dave Wilde had told the magazine that a third-party license for MPE source code could hurt HP partners providing 3000 migration services.

Wilde said the Computerworld report focused on one aspect of his comments to a reporter. The HP manager, whose duties include business responsibilities for a server HP no longer sells, said customers aren’t waiting on HP’s homestead decisions if they already have decided to use the 3000 beyond 2006.

“Based on a previous Interex survey, most customers who have needs that extend beyond HP’s end-of-support date seemed to indicate that they would make their decisions independent of HP’s specific announcements in this area of third party source code access,” Wilde told the NewsWire.

He added that he thinks a better decision on behalf of homesteading customers about source code can be made closer to 2006.

“I believe the exact needs that customers have beyond HP’s end-of support, and how those needs can be best addressed, will best be made as we get closer to the HP end-of-support date,” he said.

The OpenMPE board stated in its reply to the Computerworld article — where Wilde was directly quoted in three sentences, and paraphrased in others — that migrating customers aren’t the only kind of 3000 user. HP sees the customers as one group, the board’s message stated, all destined to migrate sooner or later. Board members promoted another view.

“It has been our hope to convince HP that the user base really consists of separate groups with different interests: those that are willing to migrate and those homesteaders that can’t or won’t. Homesteaders have no need for migration services; they need HP to help them survive this devastating turn of events by supporting their need to continue use of MPE/iX as long as possible.”

New volunteers confidential?

Board membership in OpenMPE was ready to roll over even as the directors sent their message, one that asked HP to make the licensing decision by the second half of 2004. But the results from 103 voters didn’t leave any candidate out. Six candidates ran for five positions, and another incumbent member was ready to resign after the election. OpenMPE chooses board members to replace those members who resign before their terms expire,

OpenMPE directors must sign a Confidential Disclosure Agreement that keeps them from speaking about HP’s negotiations over source code. One of the group’s director candidates said that HP “holds all the cards” in talks to release the 3000’s operating environment source code to OpenMPE. But an agreement to release source may wipe out all doubts about a group of volunteers trying to negotiate with an HP newly-focused on its intellectual property rights.

“We’re the ones trying to get something out of them that they don’t want to give up,” said Suraci during the first week of the election. “They have no legal obligation to give it up. If they do, it’s going to be a major win for OpenMPE.”

The briefed board members agree. “For MPE, HP is the only game in town,” said re-elected director Ron Horner. “They have the ball. We have to work with them to let us play with that ball. I’m not defending HP and their actions. But HP is the one in control here.”

The OpenMPE board members just elected will be required to sign a confidentiality agreement; the group amended its bylaws to require this document. But even the incumbent members are weary of this barrier to communicating some hope to homesteading customers.

“This board is frustrated in knowing generally what HP is supposed to announce, while trying to respect HP’s request for confidentiality,” the board’s statement read. “Our patience with this process is wearing thin.”

Wilde told the NewsWire that he can see some benefit to part of the 3000 community if it learns that MPE could have a future with improvements.

“I can see areas where parts of the value chain could benefit,” he said. “An example might be to some partners who may plan to provide products or services to customers beyond HP’s end-of-support date. These sorts of tradeoffs involving the broad spectrum of both partners and customers need to be carefully weighed in any decision we make.”