Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!ucsd!sdcc6!sdbio2!cleland
From: cleland@sdbio2.ucsd.edu (Thomas Cleland)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Displaybeep and Unix... this was originally in c.s.a.tech
Message-ID: <14447@sdcc6.ucsd.edu>
Date: 24 Nov 90 10:17:08 GMT
References: <9011220147.AA17409@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Sender: news@sdcc6.ucsd.edu
Reply-To: cleland@sdbio2.ucsd.edu (Thomas Cleland)
Organization: University of California, San Diego
Lines: 51
Nntp-Posting-Host: sdbio2.ucsd.edu

In article <9011220147.AA17409@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> 91_bickingd@GAR.UNION.EDU ("Bicking, David") writes:
>>Subject: Re: AmigaOS/UNIX - A Suggestion
>>Message-ID: <7100@sugar.hackercorp.com>
>>Date: 21 Nov 90 12:46:23 GMT
> 
>>> I think one of the main advantages of Amiga UNIX is that it's Standard UNIX.
>>> You have a zillion '386 machines out there, and if they're not running one
>>> of the ugly MS operating systems, they're running System V, probably 3.x but
>>> soon moving to 4.0.
> 
>>And you think that applications developers are going to keep an A3000UX around
>>to compile a copy of their code on for the relatively few 68000 ABI machines
>>out there? If they have a 68000 based machine it'll probably be a Sun: and
>>SunOS is BSD derived: not System V. In the workstation world BSD is the
>>standard.  (I personally think BSD sucks, but facts are facts)
>
>	Hm. I was under the impression that BSD was going to be a subset of
>UNIX V.4.  Am I mistaken here?
>

This is correct.  UNIX System V Release 4 constitutes a
unification of AT&T System V, BSD, XENIX, and SunOS.  There are
a few files in a separate library for backwards compatibility
with aspects of BSD which have been revised too dramatically to
be completely compatible, but I don't believe that these are
major portions of code.  

"The workstation world" presumably will operate off of SVR4 and
its GUI, Open Look, in lieu of SunView and various custom X
implementations  (X is the basis of Open Look).  Mainstream UNIX
applications in a year or two will be written for this standard
and will run unmodified on Sun4 SPARCs, Amiga 3x00UXs, and
whatever other workstations embrace the standard.  
68030 and 68040 chips being what they are, there likely won't be
much of a programmers preference between a Sun and an Amiga UX 
with the ULowell board and all that, as far as UNIX programming.

The losers look to be those vendors hopping on the rival
OSF/Motif bandwagon  (DEC, HP, IBM)  and Apple, which doesn't
seem to be doing anything to standardize.  The OSF folks are big
enough to take care of themselves, but notably IBM is hedging
its bets--note that XENIX is merging into SVR4.  I don't know
what NeXT is doing, either. 

Commodore has embraced a standard in their Unix, probably the
most pervasive standard which the computer world has seen in a
long time.  Amiga UNIX users will not have to wait for ports.
Which is how it should be.

Thom