Xref: utzoo comp.os.misc:1650 comp.os.mach:817 comp.os.minix:15082 comp.os.v:77 Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!psuvax1!rutgers!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!o.gp.cs.cmu.edu!andrew.cmu.edu!+ From: Rick.Rashid@cs.cmu.edu Newsgroups: comp.os.misc,comp.os.mach,comp.os.minix,comp.os.v Subject: Re: (Free) book on the Amoeba distributed system available Message-ID: Date: 12 Mar 91 15:38:46 GMT References: <6067@star.cs.vu.nl> Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA Lines: 20 In-Reply-To: <6067@star.cs.vu.nl> I recently met Andy (in Japan of all places) and I must say that I liked him a lot. I also recommend the ameoba book he is advertising (I have used some of the papers republished in the book in classes that I teach). That having been said, I have no idea why Andy insists on referring to Mach as a Unix replacement and characterizing Ameoba as a "research system". Mach is the product of an active research organization here at CMU and it provides multiprocessor and distributed processing facilities which are in wide use both at CMU and elsewhere in research projects and products. The only sense in which Mach could be viewed as a "Unix replacement" is in the sense that a fully compatible 4.3BSD environment can be run as an application on top of the Mach kernel. The Mach kernel is itself unrelated to Unix (and in fact is similar in many respects to Ameoba since it too is a message based system). Mach is, of course, free to all. Moreover, we have procedures which allow those on the internet to get updates as they occur. -Rick PS - Hi Andy.