Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!uwvax!umn-d-ub!umn-cs!davidli
From: davidli@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu (Dave Meile)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Re: Help us defend against VMS!
Message-ID: <4454@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu>
Date: 23 Mar 88 17:18:13 GMT
References: <2235@bsu-cs.UUCP> <892@cfa.cfa.harvard.EDU> <4236@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu> <375@amelia.nas.nasa.gov>
Reply-To: davidli@umn-cs.UUCP (Dave Meile)
Organization: University of Minnesota
Lines: 31

In article <375@amelia.nas.nasa.gov> msf@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (Michael S. Fischbein) writes:
>In article <4236@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu> davidli@umn-cs.UUCP (Dave Meile) writes:
>>  If you
>>don't believe this, try writing your own version of UNIX and marketing it
>>without paying AT&T any money.  You'll quickly experience the how "non
>>proprietary" it really is!
>
>You mean like Doug Comer and Xinu?  Or Tannenbaum (I think) and MINIX? Or
>Rich Stallman and GNU? Or CMU and Mach?  If you don't use AT&T source code,
>you don't pay AT&T.  If you rewrote VMS, you wouldn't have to pay DEC
>any royalties either, except they would throw look and feel lawsuits at you.
>

Umm... GNU stands for "GNU's Not UNIX".  And, by definition, MINIX and Xinu
are not UNIX either.  One of the original propositions was that "you can
easily transport between any system because it's all UNIX" -- well, if it
isn't all UNIX then the transport question seems moot.  You can probably
port programs between GNU, MINIX, VMS, UNIX all with about the same amount
of blood, sweat and tears.

My point -- you can't *call* these systems "UNIX systems".

Giventhe fact that DEC's operating system is a standardized architecture,
I doubt that anyone *could* rewrite VMS.  But then again, I am assured that
standard code compiled on my MicroVAX II will run on the 8600 with which
it communicates.

Actually, I would prefer the POSIX standard to AT&T UNIX.  Since many vendors
are trying to get this thing set up, we should be living in
interesting times...  And since DEC is one of the vendors pushing POSIX, we
can expect that over time VMS will look more POSIXish...