Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!auspex!guy From: guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: P1754 Message-ID: <4524@auspex.auspex.com> Date: 25 Nov 90 21:31:30 GMT References: <1990Nov16.225515.494@zoo.toronto.edu>> <0093FFDC.D0EC46E0@KING.ENG.UMD.EDU> Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara Lines: 30 >>P1754 means that Sun will no longer receive licensing fees for SPARC, and will >>lose control over its evolution. > >Hum. Control how? They'll still have the Sun OS to sell. This is not an >unsubstantial thing (so long as they don't get greedy about it). Well, they will still have an OS that they offer for their SPARC-based machines; whether it'll be called "SunOS" is a different question (one that I'm not sure Sun has resolved yet or not). A "reference port" of System V Release 4 should be available at some point (if it's not already available), but the "reference port" was done by ICL, not Sun (although I think lots of it may be based on SunOS code), probably to their DRS 6000 machines. Sun may be getting out of the business of supplying OSes to makers of SPARC-based machines; they'll probably have their own stuff added on to the S5R4 reference port, and I don't know which, if any, of those things they'll license. >>Sun wins if it keeps market share & SPARCs become commonplace. On the other >>hand Sun may lose to superior manufacturing. > >Sun doesn't sell manufacturing. They sell workstations, and (so far as my >limited knowledge goes) buy their CPUs and some of the other stuff from other >manufacturers. True, but they *do* manufacture the workstations - they buy the CPU chips, but they're the ones who put them and the other chips on the CPU boards.