Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.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: Re: Questions about HPUX 8.0, X11R4, HP policy Keywords: get real Message-ID: <1990Dec17.111908@dali.gatech.edu> Date: 17 Dec 90 16:19:08 GMT References: <1990Dec13.100152@dali.gatech.edu> <101950170@hpcvlx.cv.hp.com> Sender: news@prism.gatech.EDU Reply-To: mikeg@dali.gatech.edu (Mike Gourlay) Organization: Georgia Tech Lines: 229 John Milburn replies to my original article: }The only reason you don't have support is because you }choose not to. WRONG. The "only" reason I do not have support is that I do not run GTRI, that support is considered unaffordable, and in the past, we have not had good experience with HP computers. (We have great expereience with other hardware HP makes, like their 8510 network analyzer, I must say.) }If you really want a full X implementation, get the MIT }distribution and compile it yourself. As I posted, I do not have the disk space for doing that, since there can be NO down time for X on this, I need a running copy of R3 to run while I have the R4 source, object files, libraries and binaries. That's quite a bit more than I can fit. --------------------------------------------- Harry Phinney writes: } previously announced in this group }Not all local HP representatives have the time to keep up on news/notes }(apparently some posters don't either). Some of the posters have not read this group and all of its messages since the beginning of time. I have only had this box for one quarter. As for "Not all local HP reps..." having time to keep up with news, my reps don't have InterNet access, much less news from this group. } This server is available from: }hpcvaaz.cv.hp.com (15.255.72.15) in the file: }If you need some of the libraries not distributed with HP-UX, you can get }These contain both libXaw and libXmu. Get the README file in that }same directory for information on unpacking these archives. I have asked some times before, and got no reply, cincerning the Athena Widgets. My local rep told me that they were simply not available for HP. Naturally she's wrong, since at the very most inconvenient, one can make X from the MIT distribution, which (as an HP person points out) is not an optimal solution by any means. In fact, the main two reasons (in order) for me wanting to use R4 is an strong need for the GKS libraries, and generally R4 runs things that R3 does not that I want to run. }While new versions do indeed contain bug fixes, they also generally }contain significant new functionality. Do you believe it is free for us }to continue to improve and enhance our products? You may not care }whether I get paid, but I do. My salary comes from customers who }purchase our products. If we simply give away all future work, where }will my salary come from? As I posted, there is no such thing as new functionality as far as UNIX is concerned. Translated from HPese, this means "bug fixes," and "putting in standard UNIX libraries that HPUX lacked." Don't get sappy about your pay. Obviously GTRI does purchase HP products. If we don't buy the "software support," you'll still get paid. Whether HP pays you to do a complete, running version of UNIX, or an incomplete, buggy version of some weird hybrid of two flavors of UNIX is my concern. I'd rather you get payed for a good job. If HP tells you that incomplete, and bugs, are okay, then you can't help it. Fine. That's between HP and their customers, not you and their customers. Do not tell me that I or any set of customers is responsible for your pay. Whether that is true or not is irrelevant to this discussion. However, if you want to take up the matter of your pay with me, then I will take up the matter of a lousy job of programming with you. I'd rather keep this impersonal, and give the programmers the benefit of the doubt, and hope that no self respecting systems programmer would give their blessing to what is running on my machine right now. I'd rather like to think that HP said that "this is good enough for government work," and not give the programmers a part in the decision to market this OS. If you want to tell me that you condone HPUX 7.0, and that you think it is acceptable, then I see no problem with it being free, and you not getting payed. I suggest you drop this line of reasoning, and leave further comments about your pay out of this. ] X is in the public domain. }No, X is not in the public domain. The code from the MIT X Consortium }is copyrighted by a host of people and corporations, including HP. What's your point? GNU software is also copyrighted. I call it PD. If there is some legal technicality of words here, then maybe PD is not the term. I mean free, legal to distribute, use etc. I mean that I don't have to pay for it. If that is what PD means, then X is in the public domain. ] HP makes so called `inhancements' }I don't think we've ever claimed to make any "inhancements":-) That's that the local representative called them. }We have }certainly made enhancements to the X server to allow our Starbase, GKS, }and PHIGS libraries to better operate within the X environment, and to GKS and PHIGS work? Those are what I'm looking for. That's the reason I want R4 (other reasons less important.) I want to avoid implementing GKS, and R4 has it. If HP has it the I'm happy for Christmas. Now, where is my present? Where do I get a working copy of GKS for my HP? }take advantage of some of the features of our particular graphics }systems. We have also added input extensions to allow the server to }deal with multiple and varied input devices, and have donated this input }code back to the MIT X Consortium. Please understand that we }participate in the MIT X releases precisely because we know that some }customers require the latest-greatest version of X more quickly than we }can "productize" it. These customers (quite possibly including }yourself) are more than welcome to use the code distributed by MIT, but }must realize that it will lack some of the above-mentioned enhancements }and has not undergone the same level of testing as our product releases. I don't care if it's supported. }While ranting and flaming may make one feel a bit better during moments }of frustration, it doesn't help motivate anyone else to provide }assistance. I know. Money helps motivate anyone to provide assistance. ----------------------------------- Jim B. Byers replies: }The MIT tape contains a huge mix of MIT blessed/authored "core" }programs, and a large bunch of contributed programs that are in }various states of quality and reliability. Which ones are of interest }to you? Athena Widgets, GKS, and PHIGS are of interest to me. Are those considered by HP to be unreliable, and low quality } If they all are, have you considered installing the MIT tape }itself? Which one would you expect us to answer questions on if }they were provided? Which ones would you expect us to bugfix if }you were on support services and found a problem? If I were on support, I would expect support for Athena Widgets, GKS and PHIGS. }My 2 cents is that I see considerable effort going into new }functionality. I expect that I will pay to upgrade to new versions }of any software I use be it Unix, Dos or whatever. Nothing is free. Wrong. GNU, and X are free to be used by us. }If all future releases were free then it would cost more upfront [sic]. This }would be unfair to those who buy a product and rarely upgrade. It is unfair to pay any money for a UNIX port and have it not work. If some people do not need UNIX to work, then they get a bargain out of "software support," because they do not need it. I use much of what would be UNIX if HPUX implemented it. }We worked quite hard to assure that }the MIT stuff will compile up correctly on our machines. } We also went to }great effort to provide screen drivers so that one could compile the }MIT server and still get good performance. the MIT stuff will compile up }correctly on our machines. As it should be, since you advertise that these boxes run X. }Where have you found or X11 to be incompatible? Compatibility with }the standard release is religion here. We certainly add things that }people have said they needed (devices other than a mouse and keyboard), }the sox11 driver, Access to the 3D accelerators - but were have we }lost compatibility? Oh, that's an easy one. There are plenty of public domain programs that expect Athena Widgets that do not compile. I even had one program that used Motif widgets (one of the few I've found) that tried to use some Motif Widgets that were not on my machine, which is supposed to have it. As far as UNIX programs, I won't even bother telling you much more than that is a very, very uninformed, naive question, and a ridiculous claim. I agree thoroughly with Brian Bartholome's comments in his reply in this thread.