Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!kithrup!sef
From: sef@kithrup.COM (Sean Eric Fagan)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sysv386
Subject: Re: Unix vendors in general/Esix
Message-ID: <1991May07.023233.5012@kithrup.COM>
Date: 7 May 91 02:32:33 GMT
References: <24566@well.sf.ca.us> <1991May3.203336.6532@ico.isc.com>
Organization: Kithrup Enterprises, Ltd.
Lines: 23

In article <1991May3.203336.6532@ico.isc.com> rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn) writes:
>Why don't vendors adhere more closely and stray less?  Because they want
>to sell their software, so they extend it in ways they believe will make
>it more valuable to end-users than their competition's product.

As I see it, what happens is that a large application customer says, "Hey,
we can do *this* under DOS, but not under generic *nix.  If we can do it
under foobar's 9.2 foonix, we will port out rather major application to
foonix and you will sell lots of systems that way!"

Thus, mapping in the screen, scancode terminals, scancode mode on the
console, and a host of other things.  And, of course, every vendor does
this, and sometimes several of them do the same thing for several
application writers, and (of course) they all do it differently.  No "evil,"
just that it's not common practice to call up your competitor and say, "Hey,
we're planning on adding this feature, which will behave like this, and it
gets used like this, why don't you add it too..."

-- 
Sean Eric Fagan  | "I made the universe, but please don't blame me for it;
sef@kithrup.COM  |  I had a bellyache at the time."
-----------------+           -- The Turtle (Stephen King, _It_)
Any opinions expressed are my own, and generally unpopular with others.