Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site osu-eddie.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!osu-eddie!cbrma!kk From: kk@cbrma.UUCP Newsgroups: net.micro.att Subject: Re: Re: instability in Berkeley versus AT&T releases Message-ID: <521@osu-eddie.UUCP> Date: Sun, 4-Aug-85 11:27:15 EDT Article-I.D.: osu-eddi.521 Posted: Sun Aug 4 11:27:15 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 5-Aug-85 07:51:48 EDT Sender: uucp@osu-eddie.UUCP Organization: Ohio State Univ., CIS Dept., Cols, Oh. Lines: 54 From: cbrma!kk > > If you're referring to the S3 terminal driver, from Bell's standpoint they > > didn't break anything. it's compatible with UNIX 2.0 (or PWB/UNIX 2.0 or > > whatever the hell the release before UNIX 3.0 was). The trouble is that the > > release that went out the door before System III was V7, not UNIX 2.0, which > > means the S3 driver's backward compatibility with UNIX 2.0 is totally > > useless to anybody outside the former Bell System. > And since most real UNICES are V7 derived, what does that say about Bell? Um, I'd like to bring this point in question for just a second. Although I work for Bell, I am neither (a) defending my company nor (b) trying to convince anybody that S3/S5 is better/worse than BSD/V7. I just want to question the statement that most UNICES are V7-derived. This is basically numbers-juggling, since the complaint is based on `most UNICES.' I work at Columbus Bell Labs. My department has something like 60 people in it. We have 2 VAX 780s, 2 PDP-11/70s, 1 3B, 7 PDP-11/73s, 6 PDP-11/23+'s, and 6-or-so PDP-11/23s. My understanding (more or less confirmed by my local sysadmin) is that my department is not particularly equipment-rich with respect to processors. All of our processors run USG Unix systems, i.e., S3 or S5. There are, in turn, around 550 people (last I heard) working here at Columbus BL. Scaling up my department's systems to account for the rest of the systems at this location means that there are in the vicinity of 200 processors running Unix systems around here. It is of course important that not all of them are running USG Unix systems; the obvious case in point is that Mark Horton works (lives?) somewhere on the next floor down, and his department works primarily with BSD, I guess; knock off a dozen processors for those VAXen and SUNs, and maybe another half dozen for some other department's systems that I don't know anything about. But I think the wide majority can be said to be running non-BSD stuff. My major point is this: Columbus is far from the largest of the Bell Labs locations; we're only a `branch' location anyway. There are something like 5000 people in the Indian Hill area, and I don't even want to guess who's in NJ. I'm aware of a sysadmin in Indian Hill who has responsibility for 28 VAXen on one floor alone. Try scaling those kinds of numbers up to account for who's running what version of the Unix system; I think it'll alarm you. Thus, I don't think it's reasonable or fair to say that most Unix systems are V7-derived. Just dealing with our own internal systems, it's nowhere near true, and I haven't even made the faintest attempt to consider outside customers who are buying S5 at a substantial pace. And, further, maintaining compatibility for all those folks who were doing things in UNIX 2.0 or PWB/UNIX x.x (long, long before I showed up here) was a substantial concern. Just a thought for reflection...someone will probably flame me anyway with `Yeah, but my company runs these Widget-62s that are so popular and use BSD'...sigh. [This is probably completely unrelated to company position, of course.] -- Karl Kleinpaste