Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!sgi!shinobu!odin!westworld.esd.sgi.com!erik
From: erik@westworld.esd.sgi.com (Erik Fortune)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: A tirade about inefficient software & systems
Message-ID: <1990Nov9.000636.11292@odin.corp.sgi.com>
Date: 9 Nov 90 00:06:36 GMT
References: <9011062334.AA16216@islanders.>
Sender: news@odin.corp.sgi.com (Net News)
Reply-To: erik@westworld.esd.sgi.com (Erik Fortune)
Followup-To: alt.flame
Organization: Silicon Graphics Inc.
Lines: 35

In article <9011062334.AA16216@islanders.>, fgreco@dprg-330.GOVt.shearson.COM (Frank Greco) writes:
>	The way that X (and OSF/Motif, and the X toolkit in general) was 
>	foisted upon the computing community by DEC/IBM/HP pounding their
>	collective chests and declaring it a standard, insulting
>	everyone's intelligence by stating that they've always been behind
>	Unix and open systems, is certainly not a desirable way of 
>	selecting an technology that companies use to conduct business 
>	and universities use to help with their research.
Comrades!  He's on to us!  Execute Plan 7 immediately!

>	However, I believe that X was *really* made a de facto standard primarily 
>	because DEC (and IBM to some degree) did not want NeWS to become
>	another NFS.  
I was writing X servers for IBM at the time.  This is nonsense.

>       Despite the low licensing fee of NFS, both DEC and IBM
>	had to swallow a lot of humble pie when they had to license Sun's
>	technology; big corporations do not like to do this.  Its bad PR
>	when you license a competitors technology.  Hence the funding to
>	MIT by DEC.
Also nonsense.  Project Athena is not some evil Digital plot to foist X on 
the unsuspecting universe.    Nor is the  ITC (at Carnegie-Mellon) an evil
IBM plot to foist Andrew on the world.    You should at least make an attempt
to find out what really happened before you start flaming about this stuff.

>(Note that IBM just happens to be funding a spin-off
>	to commercialize the Andrew File System, and another to commercialize
>	Xerox OOP/Database/GUI technology with Metaphor...IBM doesn't 
>	really want Sun *or* DEC stuff!)
Have you ever actually used the Andrew File System?    I can't wait until we have AFS
here and I can pitch NFS forever...

-- Erik

Disclaimer:  all opinions my own.  Smiley's where appropriate.