Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!unmvax!pprg.unm.edu!hc!lll-winken!uunet!steinmetz!davidsen
From: davidsen@steinmetz.ge.com (Wm. E. Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Why unix doesn't catch on
Message-ID: <13527@steinmetz.ge.com>
Date: 4 Apr 89 16:15:56 GMT
References: <3177@imagen.UUCP> <1309@bucket.UUCP> <7956@chinet.chi.il.us> <13420@steinmetz.ge.com> <8029@chinet.chi.il.us> <13449@steinmetz.ge.com> <29177@bu-cs.BU.EDU> <1922@dataio.Data-IO.COM>
Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen)
Followup-To: alt.flame
Organization: General Electric CRD, Schenectady, NY
Lines: 39

In article <1922@dataio.Data-IO.COM> bright@dataio.Data-IO.COM (Walter Bright) writes:

| Unix suffers from two killer problems:
| 1. Lack of media compatibility.
| 	Silly unix vendors invariably invent a new file format. I haven't
| 	seen one yet where you could write a 5.25" disk under one
| 	vendor's unix and read it on another's.

  5-1/4" 360 and 1200k cpio (and tar) interchanges between xenix/286
(V7+SysIII) xenix/386 (SysV), Interractive, MicroPort, BellTech (all V.2
or V.3), PC/ix (SysIII), PC/RT (V.1), and probably a few I've forgotton.
QIC-24 DC600 tapes run on Xenix, MicroPort, PC/RT, Sun and Apollo at
least.

  MS-DOS floppies use tracks (35,40,77,80), sides(1,2), and
sectors(8,9,15,18) in interesting combinations, as well as a few vendors
who run sector sizes of 256,512, and 1024 bytes. Portability beyond most
being able to read 360k 5-1/4 is dubious, ask any software vendor.

| 2. Lack of binary compatibility.
| 	Can't compile on one unix and run on another, even if the
| 	hardware is the same. Source code compatibility simply isn't
| 	good enough.

  As far as I know all 386 versions of UNIX will currently cross
execute. Other platforms are not as well connected, perhaps.

| The irritating thing is that these problems are easilly solvable, but
| unix vendors suffer badly from nih.

  I will let some software vendors tell you how "easily solved" the
problems are.

You left out one killer problem: people who don't like UNIX spreading
old information, partial information, and outright B.S.
-- 
	bill davidsen		(wedu@crd.GE.COM)
  {uunet | philabs}!steinmetz!crdos1!davidsen
"Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me