Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!cornell!batcomputer!sun.mcs.clarkson.edu!mrd
From: mrd@sun.mcs.clarkson.edu (Michael R. DeCorte)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: AT&T and SUN Unix
Message-ID: <703@sun.mcs.clarkson.edu>
Date: 10 Apr 88 22:36:32 GMT
Organization: Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY
Lines: 25
Posting-Front-End: GNU Emacs 18.47.2 of Thu Dec 10 1987 on sun.mcs.clarkson.edu (berkeley-unix)



Hello,
  I have been following (mostly over the net) the deal made between
AT&T and Sun to merge BSD and SV (I shall call it V.4).  At first
thought this seemed great.  But the more I think about it the more
worried I become.  The concept itself I think is great but I keep
remembering that the a company's prime directive is to make money.
  Imagine that the V.4 is just what everyone wanted.  Everyone puts it
on their computer and all the world is now running V.4.  Who wants
BSD, Ultrix, Xenix, etc? Nobody.  I would guess that the rewrite of
V.4 in C++ will be even better, but you probably won't be able to have
source.  This is good in the sence that all of the Unix boxs will be
for the most part identical.  This is starting to look good now.  But
there is this $ in the back of my mind.  This is sort of a propietory
system now isn't it.  I can't get source and the definition is made by
a small group of people.  It get worse.  In 7 or 8 years down the road
when everyone is using V.4, what is to keep the price of V.4
reasonable?  AT&T and Sun could at any time demand any price they
wanted.  (sort of like some companies I know) If you want a network of
workstations, you have to pay $1000 for the O.S/computer plus
$300/year/computer for leasing.  You can imagine the rest.
   The reason I like Unix is not because it is the greatest O.S. in
the world.  I like it because it is a good O.S. that is cheap and
ported to a very wide range of machines.  Unix is the only O.S. I know
of that is not dependent on one hardware or software manufature.