Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!pyramid!prls!mips!dce
From: dce@mips.COM (David Elliott)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: AT&T/Sun merged UNIX
Message-ID: <1495@quacky.mips.COM>
Date: 4 Feb 88 19:39:03 GMT
References: <398@grand.UUCP> <7766@sunybcs.UUCP> <1387@winchester.mips.COM> <7192@brl-smoke.ARPA> <3991@hoptoad.uucp> <2184@pdn.UUCP>
Reply-To: dce@quacky.UUCP (David Elliott)
Organization: MIPS Computer Systems, Sunnyvale, CA
Lines: 39

In article <2184@pdn.UUCP> reggie@pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach) writes:
>      Most of the companies that are complaining are the same ones that
>really never wanted to get involved with UNIX at all.  DEC would much
>rather you use VMS and they have in the past bad mouthed ULTRIX and
>recommend VMS!  These companies are being forced by market demand to
>go with UNIX and they don't like it.  Having one, unified version of
>UNIX will only compound their difficulties in selling proprietary
>solutions.

What do you mean "most"?  You name one company out of the list of
"complaining" companies, and you call it "most"?

My view of this (which is obviously somewhat biased) is that nobody has
a problem with a unified system,  but that they have a problem with the
unifiers being such strong competition.

Look at how a new version of System V (like release 3.1) is
distributed.  You can get a 3B2 source distribution *after* AT&T makes
it available to all customers.  Then, you can pour resources into
getting your system together and hopefully not have this be an issue
with your customers.

One of the problems I have with having Sun and AT&T doing all of the
merging is that I have to wait until they are finished before I can
do any of the work.  If Sun and AT&T are willing to send me all of
their changes as they make them, and allow me to send them my fixes
and use them, I can get my software ready to release when they
release theirs.

One of the great things about BSD Unix is that it wasn't Berkeley
people developing a system by themselves.  A lot of people sent in
bug fixes and new programs and helped develop the ideas.  POSIX
and X/Open keep this kind of thing alive.

Hasn't AT&T learned their lesson about monopolies yet?

(NOTE: The opinions expressed herein are MINE, and not those of
       Mips Computer Systems, Inc.)
-- 
David Elliott		dce@mips.com  or  {ames,prls,pyramid,decwrl}!mips!dce