Xref: utzoo comp.sys.amiga:73275 alt.religion.computers:2124 Path: utzoo!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!ames!vsi1!zorch!xanthian From: xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,alt.religion.computers Subject: Re: A3000UX competition Message-ID: <1990Dec4.110045.13335@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> Date: 4 Dec 90 11:00:45 GMT References: <36449@cup.portal.com> <1990Dec2.153612.28555@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <36488@cup.portal.com> Organization: SF-Bay Public-Access Unix Lines: 133 thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) writes: > xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) 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. Umm. Thad. All those workstations that let AT&T know they had to incorporate BSD in SYSV or go out of the computer business weren't running SYSV, they were running BSD clones. And not because it was cheaper. You had to pay a BSD license on top of a SYSV license. The workstation manufacturers didn't pick BSD because it was impossible to find a standard release; they picked it because it worked better for their customers doing those customers' applications. BSD's open source policy meant that user developed software could be ported among platforms, which meant their customers saw a much more cost effective, leading edge capability combined hardware and software platform. The marketplace saw SYSV as junk, and the AT&T platforms running it did so poorly in the market, AT&T did massive layoffs for the first time in their history, to make up for the losses. >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. Gee, I just saw it as corporate greed, bureacratic stupidity, development incompetence, idea infertility, and hostility to their customer base. >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. Naturally, that's why there are two intensely hostile GUI groups -- to make sure all the platforms conform. That's why POSIX blessed the idiotic 14 character file name limit into the forseeable future. Trust me, nobody's doing anything out of sweetness and light. AT&T was watching their market share vanish, and read the handwriting on the wall. >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. I'm happy for you. Every time I've been stuck on a SYSV system, I felt like I was trying to work with my hands tied behind my back. >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? That all the third party code is a god-awful mess of BPTR's, casts, and other idiocy, from trying to conform to Tripos, and that all that could have been gone long before the OS finally settled out if the free labor had been used. Where's the win in having software development retarded, and the number of commercial programs decreased, by forcing the developers to try to learn two ways of thinking at once? The added complexity of Tripos has probably cut the available software by 1/3 (wild ass guess). >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 don't do curses programming; pretty interfaces deserve graphics support, and _any_ curses is an inadequate hack. Nevertheless, BSD curses completely supports the applications I've seen use it. The methods may be different, but the results on the screen are the same. >And don't talk to me about X; OK, I won't, but in my field, if you can't do it, you're unemployed, as I am. >Kent, it appears to me you haven't studied any recent SysV system, Bingo! Could it be that's why I asked for a comparision to find out how much of BSD I'd be losing? Any gains are gravy. > and are just parroting the statements of others without having had the > opportunity to form your OWN opinions. My opinions of SYSV have been formed on SYSV, but not the newer releases. The ones I've worked on were just half a step above being a direct insult to the user. My opinions of open software systems to go along with open hardware systems are based on common sense and the success of those who won't take no for an answer and disassemble the code anyway, to find out just what vendor supplied bug is keeping them from writing the software miracle that will double hardware sales. BSD is so good that lots of software houses develop code for completely different machines under BSD just to have the great _programmers_ development environment available. I'm under no illusion that _any_ Unix system is friendly to the non-programming user. > This is not meant as an insult or an attack, just an observation based > on your comments. Taken in that spirit. >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. I rest my case. ;-) Kent, the man from xanth.