Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!sun-barr!newstop!sun!amdcad!dgcad!gary
From: gary@proa.sv.dg.com (Gary Bridgewater)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: A tirade about inefficient software & systems
Message-ID: <659446567.5902@proa.sv.dg.com>
Date: 24 Nov 90 11:36:07 GMT
References: <9011232028.AA24515@islanders.>
Organization: Data General SDD, Sunnyvale, CA
Lines: 54

In article <9011232028.AA24515@islanders.> fgreco@dprg-330.GOVt.shearson.COM (Frank Greco) writes:
>...  This was after X was artificially called
>a standard by DEC/IBM (and to a degree HP).  And after many, many articles by
>DEC people saying "X is de facto standard" over and over again, when a small 
>minority was actually even using X.  It was a self-fulfilling prophecy.

No.   This is not an example of a self-fulfilling prophecy.   Also, the
number of people using a standard is neither here nor there.
X Windows was adopted _as_ a standard by a number of vendors and computer
user and manufacturing groups - meaning that they would abide by whatever
the X Consortium chose to define X as.  Some also chose to join so their input
could be felt.

>Back in the old days of X10, there was a Miniscule amount of people using X.
>That's understandable, X was in its formative years.
>That's my whole point.  Why was it called a standard when only a tiny 
>fraction of the computing community used it?  You cannot dictate
>standards like this.  It may be a de facto standard now, but back
>then, it wasn't.  Should we be also declaring Postgres an industry standard?
>Should we declare VPL's DataGlove a standard user interface?
>How about calling Speculative Execution a de facto standard for handling
>superscalar opcode management?  Can we demand fractal data compression as
>the industry standard for our Fax machines?.... you get the idea.

No, I don't get the idea.   Again it was called a standard by those who
chose to adopt it.   You may not be one of them.   You can manufacture
and market a workstation running whatever windowing system you choose.  You
can also give it a name and call it a standard.   If enough people vote
for it (by purchasing it) you can then license it or give it away and
rest asurred that it will be used.  If very few people buy it it will
disappear.  This is true of most industries.

>I am not denigrating the efforts of the MIT people at all.  I applaud their
>tremendous efforts, it's the marketing style of the big 
>(formerly-Unix-hating-but-now-Unix-loving) companies that I didn't like.

I think your agenda is leaking a bit.   If you are one of the "always
been Unix and damn proud of it folks" then good for you.  Now that the
fUhbnUl companies have come to agree with you why are you unhappy?  Can't
you take "Yes" for an answer?
But - would you prefer that each of these big, powerful companies enter
the market with a separate windowing system to "compete" with X?  What
would be the point?  Graphic workstations are the future of Unix - if
that future is immediately clouded by a host of competing graphic
interfaces running on a common platform what has been gained?  Perhaps you
feel that they should have, somehow, licensed a proprietary windowing
system from a competitor?  Perhaps you were hoping to do well at the
ensuing mass Going Out of Business Sales?
As far as I, personally, was concerned - when I was able to FTP the
X10 sources across the net and bring them up on a workstation here the
matter was settled.  Marketting happened after that - not before.
-- 
Gary Bridgewater, Data General Corporation, Sunnyvale California
gary@sv.dg.com or {amdahl,aeras,amdcad}!dgcad!gary
C++ - it's the right thing to do.