Path: utzoo!yunexus!geac!sean
From: sean@geac.UUCP (Sean Phelan)
Newsgroups: comp.os.misc
Subject: Re: Unix bigotry
Keywords: AOS AOS/VS ACL threads tasks processes
Message-ID: <6599@geac.UUCP>
Date: 15 Feb 89 23:29:58 GMT
Article-I.D.: geac.6599
References: <1135@raspail.UUCP> <476@cvbnet2.UUCP> <653@unocss.UUCP> <117@spectra.COM> <440@laic.UUCP> <2253@scolex.sco.COM> <3095@stiatl.U
Reply-To: sean@geac.UUCP (Sean Phelan)
Organization: Geac Computers, Markham, Ontario Canada
Lines: 30

Frank Korzeniewski writes :
>
>Way back around 1973-74 I implemented shared libraries on a swapping system
>on a pdp11/45. Even then the concept of shared libraries was old.
>
>Frank
>
Indeed.  Libraries have existed almost as long as data has been recorded -
a Babylonian temple has been found with a number of rooms filled with
clay tablets, suggesting an archive or library.  This dates from the 3rd
millennium BC. 

SHARED libraries certainly existed in classical Rome.  Cicero speaks of
visiting the library of Lucullus to borrow a book, and finding his friend,
Cato, surrounded by books of the Stoic philosophy.  Lucullus was a statesman
and general, who had acquired the library as part of his war booty.

Julius Caesar planned a public library, but died before it was built.
However a public library was built a few years later by Asinius Pollio.
Describing Pollio's work, Pliny made an observation which I think Richard
Stallman might appreciate today - "ingenia hominum rem publicam".....

        "He made men's talents a public possesion" 

Unix(tm) libraries hardly keep up this fine tradition. 
    
-- 
Sean Phelan 		Geac Computer Corporation, Markham, Ontario
sean@geac
{uunet!mnetor,yunexus,unicus,utgpu}!geac!sean