Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!homxb!mtuxo!mtune!codas!ateng!chip
From: chip@ateng.UUCP (Chip Salzenberg)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Sun or AT&T -- who blinked? (was: GNU Ramblings, Unix thoughts)
Message-ID: <163@ateng.UUCP>
Date: 22 Jan 88 17:34:36 GMT
References: <153@mozart.UUCP> <1351@sugar.UUCP> <850@elmgate.UUCP> <5166@elroy.Jpl.Nasa.Gov> <643@actnyc.UUCP> <425@genesis.ATT.COM> <151@ateng.UUCP> <7907@eddie.MIT.EDU>
Reply-To: chip@ateng.UUCP (Chip Salzenberg)
Organization: A T Engineering, Tampa, FL
Lines: 35

In article <7907@eddie.MIT.EDU> zrm@eddie.MIT.EDU (Zigurd R. Mednieks) writes:
>In article <151@ateng.UUCP> chip@ateng.UUCP (Chip Salzenberg) writes:
>>
>>You've got to be kidding.  Sun couldn't "coerce" AT&T with a nuke.
>
>Sun is the Big Gorrilla is Unix, folks. Whatever they do is a de-facto
>standard, and AT&T is, among other things, accepting that standard.

I don't quite believe that Sun's actions define a de-facto standard.  For
example:  NeWS.  X is the de-facto standard, and Display Postscript is on
the horizon; NeWS never was more than a stopgap.  Sun was the loser until
it agreed to support X.

(The decision to merge X and NeWS was even dumber, in my opinion, than the
decision to invent NeWS.  Datamation's definition of "kludge" -- "an ill-
assorted collection of poorly matching parts, forming a distressing whole"
-- applies quite nicely to the X-NeWS merge.  But I digress.)

>Sun may not have "coerced" AT&T into unsing their software, using
>their hardware architecture, and blessing it all as standard, but
>market reality has.

I don't quite see the point, here.  You're saying that AT&T's agreement to
merge SunOS features into SysV is an admission of marketing weakness, while
Sun's having slavishly provided every feature described in the SVID is
marketing savvy?  I don't quite see it that way.

Sun and AT&T recognize that as long as the UNIX market is divided into two
camps, each with its own user and system interfaces, UNIX will never become
as overwhelmingly popular as they would like.  So they are working together
for the purpose of competing in a single (larger) market.
-- 
Chip Salzenberg                 UUCP: "{codas,uunet}!ateng!chip"
A T Engineering                 My employer's opinions are a trade secret.
       "Anything that works is better than anything that doesn't."