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From: nlane@well.sf.ca.us (Nathan D. Lane)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sysv386
Subject: Unix vendors in general/Esix
Message-ID: <24566@well.sf.ca.us>
Date: 3 May 91 06:07:40 GMT
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA
Lines: 33


Our company has just started selling Unix software and the hardware to
run it on due to my insistence and unix experience - we chose Esix
primarily because of support policies; but that's not the point of this.

To Unix vendors:
	Is there such a thing as generic software?  Isn't that the point
	of unix - it should run on nearly anything.
I have been talking with numerous vendors (18 so far) who basically say
"we don't support Esix;" - typically, for PCs they only support SCO.
Experience 1:
	They don't support Esix, but they run under Esix -
	Lotus 1-2-3 and WordPerfect both run well under Esix
Experience 2:
	Those packages are very DOS-minded - 8 character filenames,
	dot, three - uppercase and they yank the whole system and
	don't support things I'm used to - like X (especially dis-
	appointing for Lotus - no graphics!)

I must say that there are standards for Unix software - the standard
set by AT&T - not SCO, not Interactive, not Esix.  Why don't vendors
adhere to the standard?  Only straying when ABSOLUTELY necessary?
They'd be happy with a bigger market, we'd be happy with more software.

btw- Realworld 6.0 also works under Esix, but no color in X-windows.

---|
   |
   |---stepped off the soap-box...

-Nathan Lane
Digital Technology Service, Santa Barbara, CA
nlane@well.sf.ca.us