Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!decwrl!shelby!neon!Gang-of-Four!dkeisen
From: dkeisen@Gang-of-Four.Stanford.EDU (Dave Eisen)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Maintenence-free UNIX?
Message-ID: <1990Oct10.161242.3423@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 10 Oct 90 16:12:42 GMT
References: <90282.125053RMG3@psuvm.psu.edu>
Sender: news@Neon.Stanford.EDU (USENET News System)
Organization: Sequoia Peripherals
Lines: 26

In article <90282.125053RMG3@psuvm.psu.edu> RMG3@psuvm.psu.edu writes:
>
>  The question is - 'Is maintenence-free UNIX an oxymoron?'
>  I have a very serious reason for asking the question, humorous
>though it may seem at first glance. 


I don't think it's a humorous question at all, it's a serious issue for
my company. We sell point of sales systems (we wrote a device driver
that allows a cash register to talk to a Xenix box and software to
do price lookup, inventory control, accounting, etc.) running on Xenix
to people who are incapable of using (or unwilling to learn) vi, let 
alone administer a Unix system. The current policy of our major contract
is to let their distributors decide whether or not to even give anyone on 
site the root password! This forces us to make the system run by itself.

It is no small task to make a UNIX system maintenance-free. I wouldn't
try to pretend that we've succeeded.



--
Dave Eisen                      	    Home: (415) 323-9757
dkeisen@Gang-of-Four.Stanford.EDU           Office: (415) 967-5644
1447 N. Shoreline Blvd.
Mountain View, CA 94043