Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!husc6!spdcc!ima!johnl From: johnl@ima.ima.isc.com (John R. Levine) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: NeXT concerns Message-ID: <3231@ima.ima.isc.com> Date: 26 Jan 89 20:53:33 GMT References: <4474@umd5.umd.edu> Reply-To: johnl@ima.UUCP (John R. Levine) Organization: Segue Software, Inc. Lines: 56 In article <4474@umd5.umd.edu> feldman@umd5.umd.edu (Mark Feldman) writes: > The university computing model requires that users be able to access > and share data easily throughout the campus. When someone is forced > to remove their data (optical drive) when they leave a NeXT, they > are being forced to isolate their data. An optical floppy at home, > left in a backpack or car, or anywhere that there isn't a NeXT is > useless. Because the user's files are not being kept on a central > server, as is done when people use our VAXstations, there is no way > for someone to dial in and access their files. We can back up > servers, but in the NeXT model the user is responsible for the > integrity of their data. If you want to boot your NeXT from the network, store your files centrally, and get to them via NFS, go ahead. It all works now. I don't think anyone seriously expects multiple NeXTs not to be networked any more than you'd expect multiple Suns or Vaxes not to. (The Ethernet is standard, after all.) The optical disk is a perfectly reasonable storage medium for people who don't entirely trust the central server to keep their files around, at the end of a term for example. Also keep in mind the amount of data we're talking about here. Say you have 10,000 students each with one optical disk. That's 2500 gigabytes of storage, a large amount even by modern standards. Given the hardware on the NeXT, we can expect users to have large files full of digitized images and sound. Is it really mission critical to have centralized, backed up copies of 10,000 megabytes of pictures of people's gerbils and voice mail of light bulb jokes? > The need to share data also requires that the NeXT applications and > data be accessable from non-NeXT workstations. It should be > emphasized to software developers that data written by NeXT > applications should be Unix-style -- readable ASCII files that can > be managed with other Unix utilities. Obviously, there will be a > loss in functionality (there goes that nice interface), but it is > very important that people be able to get to their data. Most of the demo programs that NeXT provides seem to keep their data (as opposed to interface builder and screen design stuff) in normal ASCII files. Printer output is postscript. > Source is another important topic with universities, which it seems > NeXT is still side stepping. I was at the developers' camp two weeks ago and at the banquet, Steve Jobs took questions, many of which concerned source code. The opposition to making source available seems to be more pragmatic than theological, they don't want proliferating slightly incompatible versions of everything that would make it harder to interchange applications. He gave the impression that reasoned arguments could persuade them to release parts of the code, particularly the less propritary parts. On the other hand, people do seem to get work done on Macs and PCs without source code, so there's some suspicion that the demands for source code are based as much on Unix tradition as on real need. -- John R. Levine, Segue Software, POB 349, Cambridge MA 02238, +1 617 492 3869 { bbn | spdcc | decvax | harvard | yale }!ima!johnl, Levine@YALE.something You're never too old to have a happy childhood.