Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!amdahl!pyramid!octopus!vsi1!altnet!uunet!mcvax!ukc!eagle.ukc.ac.uk!icdoc!qmc-cs!harlqn!andrew From: andrew@jung.harlqn.uucp (Andrew Watson) Newsgroups: comp.misc Subject: Unix technical & commercial considerations (was: free versions of complex software) Summary: But seriously - why do people licence sys V instead of 4.2? Message-ID: Date: 15 Oct 88 15:58:10 GMT References: <780@proxftl.UUCP> <600@sering.cwi.nl> <2133@stpstn.UUCP> <492@optilink.UUCP> <485@genesis.ATT.COM> Sender: news@harlqn.UUCP Organization: Harlequin Limited, Cambridge, UK Lines: 35 In-reply-to: andys@genesis.ATT.COM's message of 12 Oct 88 16:45:37 GMT In article <485@genesis.ATT.COM> andys@genesis.ATT.COM (a.b.sherman) writes: In article I write: >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. Okay, I'll get off my hobby horse now, before I start another skirmish in the Unix religious wars (:-) ... I've used both System V.1/2/3 and BSD 4.2 (vanilla, SunOS, Ultrix) extensively, and honestly prefer the latter, and I'm still curious to know the reasons behind the decisions of the likes of HP, DG, TI, Intergraph &c to go with System V not 4.2. Is it really just the licencing minefield surrounding the Berkeley version? Can someone cast some light on this? -- Regards, Andrew. +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Andrew Watson, Harlequin Limited, andrew@uk.co.harlqn | | Barrington Hall, Barrington, Tel: +44 223 872522 | | Cambridge CB2 5RG, UK Fax: +44 223 872519 | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+