Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!ucsd!ogccse!blake!uw-beaver!apollo!mishkin
From: mishkin@apollo.HP.COM (Nathaniel Mishkin)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: rpc protocols
Keywords: rpc,protocols,rpc/xdr,asn.1,apollo
Message-ID: <45b7d053.1d6d5@apollo.HP.COM>
Date: 18 Sep 89 21:09:00 GMT
References: <251049BF.4D2B@marob.masa.com> <12714@joshua.athertn.Atherton.COM>
Reply-To: mishkin@apollo.com (Nathaniel Mishkin)
Organization: Apollo Computer, Chelmsford, MA
Lines: 36

In article <12714@joshua.athertn.Atherton.COM> joshua@atherton.com (Flame Bait) writes:
>The RPC standards "game" is not as complicated as it sounds:
>    Sun's RPC is the standard on UNIX machines.
>    Netwise's RPC is the standard on IBM PC machines 
>        (with some competition from Sun).
>...
>I know that this message will generate a lot of mail from various Apollo,
>DEC, and/or IBM  people saying that "Sun's RPC is not standard" or "We're
>just as standard as they are, etc."  This makes good marketing hype, but it
>is not true.

I wouldn't want to disappoint anyone by not responding to this.  Joshua,
of course, makes some valid points, but on the other hand, Sun RPC promotion
is not free from marketing hype either.  I can't forget the time (when
Sun announced it's ONC packaging of NFS and Sun RPC) Apollo Computer's
name appeared in a glossy on a list of vendors "supporting" ONC.  That was
because we licensed the NFS trademark (I'm sure that's not the right legal
lingo by the way) for the Apollo NFS product (which, by the way, doesn't
use Sun's NFS source code -- only Sun RPC proper).  Many systems
have Sun RPC on them because they support NFS and Sun RPC comes along
for the ride.  Clearly, regardless of why it's there, it's there and that
has to be considered.  But so is "vi".  That doesn't necessarily make
it either (a) what I use, (b) useful, or (c) standard.  And just like
the presence "vi" doesn't preclude my using "gnuemacs", neither does
the presence of ONC preclude the use of NCS.

BTW, I have no particular reason to believe that Netwise RPC is the
"standard" in the MS/DOS world.  I doubt that any RPC has enough
penetration there to be deserving of the term "standard".

Anyway, if anyone wants to know more about NCS, they can contact me
(mishkin@apollo.com)  I'll spare you all any more advertising here.
-- 
                    -- Nat Mishkin
                       Hewlett Packard Company / Apollo Systems Division
                       mishkin@apollo.com