Xref: utzoo comp.sys.amiga:73173 alt.religion.computers:2121 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!julius.cs.uiuc.edu!apple!hercules!fernwood!portal!cup.portal.com!thad From: thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,alt.religion.computers Subject: Re: A3000UX competition Message-ID: <36488@cup.portal.com> Date: 3 Dec 90 07:17:08 GMT References: <86470@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> <12003@hubcap.clemson.edu> <36449@cup.portal.com> <1990Dec2.153612.28555@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> Organization: The Portal System (TM) Lines: 95 xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) in <1990Dec2.153612.28555@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> writes: [...] {numerous comments praising BSD and condemning SysV} And his comment: _The_ thing that made BSD so much better than its AT&T parent ... was the ready availability of _almost free_, _full_ source code licences to the user/programmer community, so that the tremendous resource of free user community programming effort ... That's the VERY problem SVR4 prevents. Now hear me out. I, too, am from the "school" where ready availability of sources was de rigeur, and I've had mixed emotions on the SysV sources issue for quite some time. One of the very reasons UNIX was NOT being as readily accepted in the "real" world was due to all the hundreds of customized "hacks" and non-portable features at each of 100's or 1000's of sites. If one used feature "foo()" at site bar.edu, that feature was NOT guaranteed to be available or work the same at site nematode.com. One reason that I see for AT&T's recent high source license fees was to restrict random hacks to "responsible" port teams for platform-specific features as required, and to assure that SVR4 would have the same "look and feel" no matter what vendor's UNIX one chose to use. As UNIX is becoming "essentially" a standard, it MUST conform to the other vendors' ports. This follows the reasoning behind the Application Binary Interface (the UNIX "shrink wrap software" compatibilty) formulated by very seasoned and capable persons. Everything I've wanted in SysV is in SVR4, and it appears that everything from 4.3BSD is in there too: file systems, networking, etc etc etc. Kent continues: 3) Tripos would have been out of AmigaDOS two years ago if the user community had been allowed to participate in the process. Has Commodore learned the BSD lesson yet? So? Programs I've written which worked under pre-1.0 AmigaDOS are still working under the latest OS. What's your point? And finally, he says: ... the utilities that make everyday BSD use the most productive software development environment in existance? Bushwa! As just ONE example of BSD's obsoletedness that recently caused me MUCH grief, let's look at BSD curses vs. *ANY* SysV curses since SVR3. Where's the BSD terminfo support, alternate character set, region scrolling, line insert/delete, color support, etc etc etc? I just had to buy a source license from Aspen Scientific for their "curses" package (SVR3.2 compatible) just so my programs WOULD have the same "look and feel" under BSD, A/UX, and VAX/VMS as they do under SysV; the BSD, A/UX and VAX/VMS curses are garbage, plain and simple. I've thrashed THIS issue out in comp.sys.att, comp.unix.*, and several other newsgroups. Guy Harris' only comment about my postings and other info concerned A/UX (and if you don't know who Guy Harris is, then you don't know your UNIX history; you can look him up at either auspex!guy or in "The Design and Implementation of the 4.3BSD UNIX Operating System"). And don't talk to me about X; all my application needed was tiled and over- lapping pop-up fancy-line-border windows, menus and "forms" along with various text and character video attributes (and now color) and cursor-key, mouse and keypad user input WITHOUT the overhead of X, especially since most "real world" business customers do NOT have X-terminals and may be calling in at 2400 to 9600 baud on serial lines. The application couldn't be done under BSD without writing my OWN graphics library (or buying the Aspen one), since BSD doesn't provide those features BUT SVR3 and SVR4 do. Kent, it appears to me you haven't studied any recent SysV system, and are just parroting the statements of others without having had the opportunity to form your OWN opinions. This is not meant as an insult or an attack, just an observation based on your comments. For MANY years I thought *ALL* UNIX systems were garbage because I was listening to others whose opinions I respected ... until I had the opportunity to buy my own system and actually LEARN what UNIX is all about (all versions); I now own, personally, 7 UNIX boxes and have many others available to me because it wasn't until I could SEE and USE UNIX that I realized how really good it is for the type of things I and my clients need to do. And that's why I also formed the Silicon Valley AT&T UNIX Users' Group: to help spread "The WORD!" :-) My only REAL gripe with pre-SVR4 systems has been the 14-character filename limit ... that has been REALLY a hassle for me. But with SVR4 you just bring up the BSD FFS and no sweat. If you want some SVR4 systems to play with, there are several opportunities available besides the one listed in the net-posting re: A3000 UNIX; many of them are '486-based, but some 68040-based ones should be available VERY soon (assuming I haven't been fed some marketing hype). Thad Floryan [ thad@cup.portal.com (OR) ..!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!thad ]