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From: vjs@rhyolite.wpd.sgi.com (Vernon Schryver)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.nfs
Subject: Re: NeFS protocol
Message-ID: <61061@sgi.sgi.com>
Date: 26 May 90 00:37:48 GMT
References: <23525@bellcore.bellcore.com> <136212@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
Sender: vjs@rhyolite.wpd.sgi.com
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc., Mountain View, CA
Lines: 44

In article <136212@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>, pugs@whitsun.Sun.COM (Tom Lyon) writes:
> 
> My belief is that PostScript makes a pretty good intermediate language - we
> just haven't figured out what the high level language should look like.


Could you comment about the use of PostScript in file systems in
view of Sun's experience with PostScript in window managers, setting
asside the marketing issues with respect to X?  I am making the obvious
inference that Sun must view NeWS as a disaster, if only because of the
amount of code that is being put down the memory hole.

Could you say why NeWS and NeFS will have differing fates, despite
the evident parallels between X vs. NeWS and NFS or AFS vs. NeFS?

History (simplistic, one-sided history for third parties):
    -Sun announces a new, open standard for window managers, using PostScript,
    -Silicon Graphics receives presentations from Sun, and is impressed by
	the same arguements about sending programs instead of data.
    -SGI hears presentations from Getty's et al about X.
    -Since high speed graphics prefer programs to pixels and raster ops, SGI
	is less impressed by X than by NeWS.
    -SGI decides to join the Sun NeWS bandwagon.
    -after enormous porting, debugging, and re-writing effort and pain, NeWS
	becames the default window manager on Silicon Graphics IRIS's.
    -the same never seems to happen at Sun (the default, I wouldn't know
	about the pain).
    -X wins in the market, for various reasons.
    -Sun supports X vigorously and completely forgets NeWS.

Summary:
    The idea is interesting.  The implementation, particularly using
    PostScript, is less compelling for technical and business reasons.

Disclaimer:
    NeWS will be the default in the next SGI release.  Please do not
    understand anything here as an announcement--that's not my department.

Moral:
    Avoid cute, mixed-case acronyms.


Vernon Schryver
vjs@sgi.com