Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!ncar!gatech!prism!dali.gatech.edu!mikeg
From: mikeg@dali.gatech.edu (Mike Gourlay)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp
Subject: Questions about HPUX 8.0, X11R4, HP policy
Keywords: HPUX 8.0 help X11R4 gripe
Message-ID: <1990Dec13.100152@dali.gatech.edu>
Date: 13 Dec 90 15:01:52 GMT
Sender: news@prism.gatech.EDU
Reply-To: mikeg@dali.gatech.edu (Mike Gourlay)
Organization: Georgia Tech
Lines: 62

Hi HP people,

	I hear that  HPUX 8.0 will be shipped out in June or July.
I also hear that X11R4 will be send with it.  That is, if you have
`software support.'

	What if you don't have software support?  [Gripes about
HP policy left for later.]  Will someone please make a tar file of the
distribution tape, and put it somewhere?  Or send the tar file to those
of us who have no support from HP?

	My local HP rep was confused when I told her I knew of
people with X11R4 on an HP.  She seems to think that it hasn't been
released yet.  People have it, though!

	Will the X11R4 binaries running on HPUX 6.5 also run
on a similar machine running 7.0?  Specifically,  will the X binaries
running on a HPUX 6.5 9000s319C+ run on a HPUX 7.0 9000s370?
Libraries? Server? Client?

	Why does the X11R3 that comes with HPUX 7.0 not include
some of the X routines that many public programs expect?  Will X11R4
lack this hideous problem?

	Why does HP consider fixing their software bugs (called an update
of the OS) something for which you have to pay big money for a
support contract?  It is unfair.  If you pay for UNIX, you should get UNIX,
and not have to pay incrementally to have HP give you UNIX over a period
of time.  It isn't as if the machine was inexpensive up front.  It isn't as if
HPUX is not the most incompatible port of UNIX and X on the planet. It 
most certainly is NOT that new versions of the OS are improvements
to UNIX.  The new versions are bug fixes.  That is not right.

	X is in the public domain.  HP makes so called `inhancements'
(read "incompatible frilly fluff")  to it and sells it for money. 
Motif is nice, but the other bugs and left-outs of HP's version of X
on HPUX are not worth it.  X should be compilable from the distribution
at MIT, and so capable people should be able to compile X11R4 without
waiting for the newest distribution from HP.  Has anyone done that?  I'll
admit that I'm not a capable person when it comes to getting UNIX programs
to run on HPUX.  My local rep blaimed it on inherent incompatibilities in
UNIX.  WHAT?!?!?!!? That's ridiculous.  Inherent incompatibilities in UNIX?
No such thing.  Between UNIX and HPUX, okay.  Between SYSV and BSD,
okay.  Between _either_ BSD or SYSV and HPUX, I see incompatibility
(or is it incompetence?)  But not within UNIX.  That, according to her,
is why WE HAVE TO PAY HP TO GIVE US PUBLIC DOMAIN SOFTWARE
AND BUG FIXES TO THEIR WEIRD, BUGGY, INCOMPLETE UNIX
PORT AND SPECIAL VERSION OF X.

	For now, I run many of the X apps I need on a Sparc, and just
have the Sparc use my display.  EtherNet is wonderful.  xhost + is
fantastic.  My HPUX is being used as a dumb X terminal!!!  I'd like it
to evolve into something more useful.

	Thank you in advance for your reply,
	Mike Gourlay
	mike@penguin.gatech.edu

--------------------------------------------
I don't officially speak for Georgia Tech or GTRI;  Why the hell
should they care if I'm unhappy with HPUX, just because I work
with it every single day?  The upper echelons have Sparcs and SGI's.