Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!hitachi!billg
From: billg@hitachi.uucp (Bill Gundry)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Un*X cost
Message-ID: <650@hitachi.uucp>
Date: 2 Nov 90 18:21:18 GMT
References: <4187@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au>
Organization: Hitachi America - Semiconductor & IC
Lines: 27

From article <4187@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au>, by ok@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au (Richard A. O'Keefe):
> In article <0093F120.388EDA40@KING.ENG.UMD.EDU>, sysmgr@KING.ENG.UMD.EDU (Doug Mohney) writes:
>> In article <3686@skye.ed.ac.uk>, richard@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Richard Tobin) writes:
>> >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).
...
>> But who will provide support for GNU & the 4.4? Will there be independent
>> consulting firms started up which charge $$$$/hour for support of these OSes?
...
> There already _are_ support companies that support GNU products; quite a
> few, in fact.  I don't see any reason to expect the level of support

The one issue that *has* to be addressed is that of third party software
support. While you may be able to get a "free" UNIX and obtain some
level of service for it, you will probably suffer from a lack of
commercial applications. While the "hackers" may pooh on the idea of
commercial applications, for most companies, and indviduals, there has
to be some availability of commerical grade software that runs a variety of
systems and is suported by some type of maintenance agreement.

If I was a software developer I would certainley concentrate on the commercial
UNIX versions. 

For myself,

Bill Gundry