Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!burl!codas!ateng!chip
From: chip@ateng.UUCP (Chip Salzenberg)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Sun or AT&T -- who blinked? (was: GNU Ramblings, Unix thoughts)
Message-ID: <167@ateng.UUCP>
Date: 26 Jan 88 15:56:55 GMT
References: <153@mozart.UUCP> <1351@sugar.UUCP> <850@elmgate.UUCP> <163@ateng.UUCP> <1625@ssc-vax.UUCP>
Reply-To: chip@ateng.UUCP (Chip Salzenberg)
Organization: A T Engineering, Tampa, FL
Lines: 42

In article <1625@ssc-vax.UUCP> benoni@ssc-vax.UUCP (Charles L Ditzel) writes:
>Yes is X is in current vogue. I don't agree that NeWS has lost, quite the
>contrary, two major forces have source licenses :
>   1) AT&T
>   2) Microsoft
>There are others...

Do you think that everyone with a NeWS source license will sell it and
support it?  That isn't a sure bet.

>look for X for the next few years to be prominent, but the long term is
>NeWS or a NeWS-like product.

NeWS-like product?  Sounds like Display Postscript to me.

I (Chip Salzenberg) wrote:
>> (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.)

Charles Diztel comments:
>I think you are completely wrong on this one.  A NeWS/X platform provides
>the best of two worlds.

I didn't say that it would be a bad environment to work in, but that the
merge itself is a kludge.  NeWS and X are so large, and their world views
so different, that any combination of the two cannot be pretty -- at least
on the inside, where bugs and bug fixes and upgrades take place.

>I think we will be seeing a decent Unix standard emerging.  I suspect 
>that between Sun 386, Sun 3/60, NeXT Machines and Apple A/UX Mac II
>...we may have see Unix furthered by quite a bit more than you think.

(Hark! a voice in the wilderness:)
	"Why, oh why, does everyone forget Xenix?"
If I remember correctly, Xenix has the largest installed base of CPU's
(not users, mind you) running any flavor of UN*X.
-- 
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."