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From: saustin@bbn.com (Steve Austin)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Where is MINIX going?
Keywords: MINIX
Message-ID: <61262@bbn.BBN.COM>
Date: 2 Dec 90 00:41:45 GMT
Sender: news@bbn.com
Distribution: comp
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I have been reading comp.os.minix for some time now and have been thinking
of buying MINIX for my 386 IBM clone. I was just poised to oder it when I saw
Glen Overby's "MINIX information sheet (1 Dec 1990)", which amongst other
thing announced a price rise from $80 to $170. While I respect the aims
of the MINIX users' group, I would like to ask some question (which I do
not mean to be criticisms of Glen Overby, Michael Tannenbaum, the MINIX users'
group or MINIX itself).

1)	Why is Prentice-Hall jacking the price up and who is getting the money?
	While I realize that MINIX 1.5 is an improvement on earlier
	versions, it seems to me that it is partially improved by the users
	group. So who is getting the extra money? I would hope that it is the
	programmers who contribute to MINIX, but if (as I suspect)
	Prenitce-Hall is trying to milk what it thinks is a cash cow, they
	can take a walk. There are other, cheaper, versions of UNIX for the
	PC.

2)	What is going to happen to the price when MINIX gets virtual memory?
	It seems to me that various dedicated souls are working on
	implementing VM for free. Can I expect to see another price hike
	when this happens. If so, who gets the money?

3)	On a less emotional note, what is the max size of program you can
	run on MINIX for a 386. If it runs in the same mode as an 8086,
	I suppose the answer is 640k. Since Glen's information sheet
	mentionned that people are working on 32bit MINIX for the 386,
	I suppose that means that the 386 operates in brain-dead mode.

4)	I notice that a ANSI C compiler is being developed. However,
	somebody has recently announced that GNU's gcc works for 
	386 MINIX. Also, gcc has been producing 68k code for a long time.
	Wouldn't it be easier to work with GNU to get gcc, gdb, g++ etc
	integrated into the MINIX environment.

Again, no offence to MINIX intended, I am basically wondering whether
history is repeating itself with MINIX.

	Steve Austin