Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!elroy!orion.cf.uci.edu!uci-ics!venera.isi.edu!raveling From: raveling@vaxb.isi.edu (Paul Raveling) Newsgroups: comp.os.misc Subject: Re: Why Unix is good (was Re: Unix bigotry) LONG Message-ID: <7589@venera.isi.edu> Date: 21 Feb 89 18:25:46 GMT References: <117@spectra.COM> <692@cvbnet2.UUCP> <3101@ficc.uu.net> <285@bnr-fos.UUCP> <7911@boring.cwi.nl> Sender: news@venera.isi.edu Reply-To: raveling@isi.edu (Paul Raveling) Organization: USC-Information Sciences Institute Lines: 21 In article <7911@boring.cwi.nl> jack@cwi.nl (Jack Jansen) writes: > >The real-world issue is not portability of the kernel but portability >of user programs. Amen. However, the easiest way to assure portability of user programs is to have a portable kernel. In the case of UNIX, also a portable hierachy of things in /etc, /dev, /usr/adm, /bin, /usr/bin, /usr/local/bin, /usr/contrib/bin, /lib, /usr/lib, /man, /usr/local/man, etc. ad nauseum. ... And don't forget whether your setup is for sh, csh, ksh, tcsh, ... UNIX's architecture fosters incompatibility by migrating a lot of functions out of the kernel to levels where users have to deal with them. ---------------- Paul Raveling Raveling@isi.edu