Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!ucsd!ucbvax!agate!ziploc!eps
From: eps@toaster.SFSU.EDU (Eric P. Scott)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: X11 for the NeXTstation
Message-ID: <1120@toaster.SFSU.EDU>
Date: 14 Jan 91 06:33:49 GMT
References: <3573@gazette.bcm.tmc.edu> <1117@toaster.SFSU.EDU> <1991Jan14.001459.13161@cs.mcgill.ca>
Reply-To: eps@cs.SFSU.EDU (Eric P. Scott)
Organization: San Francisco State University
Lines: 57

In article <1991Jan14.001459.13161@cs.mcgill.ca>
	peterd@cs.mcgill.ca (Peter Deutsch) writes:
>>NeXT has better things to worry about... like developing a
>>C2-certifiable release.  That's going to count for a lot more,
>>since the really big customers won't even look at NeXT without
>>that, and it's not something a third party can easily address.
>
>Sorry, but I don't think "they" will look at it without X,
>as well. It's now what the marketers call a "checklist
>item".

C2 is a *low* classification, and fairly simple to meet.  When
the U.S. Federal Government says "C2 security is a minimal
requirement for computer purchases" they're not only talking to
UNIX workstation vendors, or UNIX vendors, or workstation
vendors, or of machines that run TCP/IP, or machines for which X
implementations exist.  MISfits and other more-money-than-brains
types jump on this--security paranoia is rampant.  These guys
don't care HOW the job gets done--it could be in punched cards
and JCL for all they care--but they want to feel In Control of
their data.  When the public sector customers and Fortune 500
companies ask "are your machines secure?" NOTHING ELSE MATTERS.
If you say "no" you'll lose millions of dollars in sales because
your products won't be considered NO MATTER WHAT FEATURES THEY
OFFER.  The big money doesn't come from selling to academics,
and comp.sys.next/NEXT-L are not representative samples of the
target market.

As an end-user, I'm no fan of C2--I think it's obnoxious.  But I
realize that its importance is many orders of magnitude greater
than One of Many window systems.  NeXT no more needs to support X
than FORTRAN.  Just because some customers are up to their
nostrils in that which stinketh, doesn't mean that NeXT has to
lower itself to the same level.  If you want it, get it from a
third party and stop holding the rest of us back.

Where would we be if we couldn't progress beyond Intel 8080s?
Where would we be if we couldn't progress beyond MSDOS?
Where would we be if we couldn't progress beyond WordStar?
Where would we be if we couldn't progress beyond X11?

I can still remember being asked by management what I thought
about getting quad-Z80 UNIBUS cards to be able to run CP/M
applications on a VAX 11/780.  This was a time when _everybody_
ran CP/M--it was the common denominator among lots of different
vendors' equipment.  Fortunately I was able to convince them of
the folly in this, and the "cutting edge" stayed sharp.  The new
technology blossomed, and the old perished.

You have to be willing to let go of the past or you're doomed.
Kiss your X goodbye.

					-=EPS=-
-- 
If you really believe that X11 will be with us for years to come
and everyone's in too deep to get out now, look how many record
stores still sell vinyl LPs.  The handwriting is on the wall.