Path: utzoo!yunexus!geac!syntron!jtsv16!uunet!ncrlnk!ncrcae!hubcap!gatech!uflorida!ukma!rutgers!att!whuts!homxb!genesis!andys From: andys@genesis.ATT.COM (a.b.sherman) Newsgroups: comp.misc Subject: Re: free versions of complex software (Re: So let's talk about FSF) Summary: V8 is not ubiquitous here Message-ID: <485@genesis.ATT.COM> Date: 12 Oct 88 16:45:37 GMT Article-I.D.: genesis.485 References: <780@proxftl.UUCP> <600@sering.cwi.nl> <2133@stpstn.UUCP> <492@optilink.UUCP> Reply-To: andys@shlepper.ATT.COM (a.b.sherman) Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, West Long Branch, N.J. Lines: 58 In article andrew@jung.harlqn.uucp (Andrew Watson) writes: >In article <492@optilink.UUCP> cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) writes: > > This whole discussion can be boiled to the immortal epigram, first coined > about BSD 4.1 UNIX, "Free university software is too expensive to use." ^^^^ > >Hmmm ... well I'd be half inclined to agree with you, except the the the other >(Unix) option really isn't much better - I am of course referring to System V. ^^^^ First off, not to be picky or anything, but UNIX(R) is a registered trademark of AT&T. > >Can anyone give me a good reason why all these big corporations licence System >V, only to have to port to it large parts of 4.1/2/3 just to make it usable? >I'm talking about sockets, the Fast File System, all the TCP/IP utilities, >symbolic links ... and then they're *still* left with a system with a lousy >short term scheduler that truncates all file names to 14 characters! > I don't really want to get into a debate about the technical merits of these comments. However, people license System V and port it because it is the latest commercially available version of the UNIX system. Also, they will have to pay the license fee for most other *IX systems anyway, since they were mostly derived from AT&T source code of older versions. >Another thing - back in the old days, with v6, v7 & 4.x, even if the software >wasn't really "supported", one at least had the reassurance that the Research >& Development community, the people with new ideas who were rolling back the >frontiers, who knew the real requirements up there at the leading edge (things >that will be commonplace in about 2 years) - these people were using the same >system that you were. And now? AT&T are busy selling us system V, while their >labs use version 8, which may never be commercialised, and in any case IS BASED >ON BSD 4.2 - nothing remotely to do with system V. I don't know what V8 (or V9 for that matter) is based upon, because most of Bell Laboratories does not use it. The research versions of the UNIX system are used almost exclusively in the computing reasearch environment. Most of us use System V because that is what we build into our products. Also, do not fear. The important features of the research versions find there way into new releases of System V. For example, STREAMS was a V8 feature that has now been incorporated into System V Release 3. You still benefit from what the research folks are doing. > >I rest my case. Ah, but did you have all the information. -- andy sherman / at&t bell laboratories (medical diagnostic systems) room 2e-108 / 185 monmouth pkwy / west long branch, nj 07764-1394 (201) 870-7018 / andys@shlepper.ATT.COM ...The views and opinions are my own. Who else would want them?