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From: thomsen@spf.trw.com (Mark R. Thomsen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: GNU Objective-C (Was: NeXTSTEP Licensing?)
Message-ID: <2829F6FD.26CD@deneva.sdd.trw.com>
Date: 10 May 91 01:27:25 GMT
References: <23469@lanl.gov>
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In article <23469@lanl.gov> bedney@lanl.gov (Bill Edney) writes:
> From having talked to an IBM representative at a NeXT Developer's Camp,
> IBM is making another "brain-damaged" move. (Sorry for that Steveism).
> Even though they are a member of OSF and have licensed NeXTstep, they
> are going to continue to go with their own AIX kernel!! ("Too much
> investment of money in developing it", was the IBM rep's response.)
> This is part of the problem IBM is having in porting NeXTstep 2.0. The
> Workspace Manager in 2.0 relies heavily on Mach threads, which are not
> present in AIX. Now I hear that IBM is trying to fake Mach threads on
> top of the AIX kernel!! Why can't these people wake up and
> smell the coffee?!

Invested money is not necessarily smart money. AIX kernal (and non-Mach
kernals in general) is sort of piggish. Putting something that is
performance sensitive on top of it ... well ...

IBM did invest a lot of money in NeXTstep licensing. I can't see that
same investment in a kernal. If they did (reported over $10M in the
press for NeXTstep) then the proper response would be to fire the
OS team and go with Mach. If they did not then why throw away the NeXT
investment?

There must be more to it. Damaged brains could explain much.

Mark R. Thomsen