Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!ncar!ico!rcd
From: rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: OS cost component of workstation
Message-ID: <1990Nov1.234831.2066@ico.isc.com>
Date: 1 Nov 90 23:48:31 GMT
References: <2176@lupine.NCD.COM> <42310@mips.mips.COM> <3686@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: Interactive Systems Corporation, Boulder, CO
Lines: 42

(Mutter...why don't people change Subject: lines when they change topics?
I passed by once because this was still carrying the Tektronix/88k subject.)

richard@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Richard Tobin) writes:
  my@frapper.UUCP (Michael Yip) writes:
> >After all this price arguments, did anyone include the cost of the
> >software (eg the UNIX OS and util) into the comparsion?
That, BTW, is a very good question, since that factor makes some of the
low-end RISC machines--which include OS--very competitive.

> With luck, within a year or so, they may be two industrial-strength
> free Unixes available - GNU, from the Free Software Foundation, and
> 4.4-detox (ie BSD "detoxified" - with the AT&T code removed).

Fine.  Now show me how many people will buy a machine assuming they can get
the OS free "with luck" and "in a year"!  Yeah, you bet, I'm going out to
buy a few $K of hardware hoping I'll get lucky in the next year or so to
have free software for it.

COME ON!  You can wish for free UNIX all you want (I do!:-), but it hasn't
happened, it's not close, and it's not happening very fast.  People are
paying for OSes because they want to use machines NOW, not next year.

Yes, GNU wants a freed UNIX-like system, but is there any reason to think
they'll actually have one within the next year?  I don't think so.  Last
public statement I saw, they hadn't even settled on a base for it.  (And
no, Mach is not going to be free in the near future.  A freed micro-kernel
is not a free kernel; any usable Mach-based system is going to be heavily
tied up in licenses for quite some time yet.)

And yes, Berkeley is freeing code...slowly.  Has anyone seen the BSD boys
put a firm date on when 4.4 will be out, let alone when there would be a
de-tox'ed version?  If you've watched Berkeley in the past, you know that
if they don't set a date, they're not ready to set a date and it's point-
less to second-guess when they'll have something out.

(Before you flame:  Consider that I'm stating what I think is an accurate
assessment, *NOT* what I would like to see happen!  Hey, I'd like to see
a free BSD for my 386 next month.)
-- 
Dick Dunn     rcd@ico.isc.com -or- ico!rcd       Boulder, CO   (303)449-2870
   ...but Meatball doesn't work that way!