Aucbvax.5885
fa.info-vax
utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!info-vax
Thu Jan 21 02:05:24 1982
Re: pandora's box
>From Peter.Lucas@CMU-10A Thu Jan 21 02:02:35 1982
                    The favorite reasons (generally) *administrators*
		    (a dirty word) use for selecting VMS is
                    "maintainability".  Our Psychology department
		    selected VMS for this reason, against the loud
		    protests of all who actually use the machine.
     As both a user and a sometime *administrator* of the CMU psychology
vaxen (and one who was present at the proceedings), let me set the
record straight:
     The issue of whether to run Unix or VMS in the department was
debated at great length in public forum.  Our highest priorities were a
very stable, reliable lisp system -- not necessarily absolutely
state-of-the-art -- and one that could be easily maintained given our
limited resources and interest in system development.  From these
discussions emerged a strong consensus favoring VMS.  The final
decision was made by vote of the department computing committee, all of
whom are users and only I an *administrator*.  There were exactly two
dissenting votes.  The "loud protests" came from a small minority of
True Believers.
		-PAL