Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!mtxinu!unisoft!hoptoad!peora!rtmvax!bilver!jwt!john
From: john@jwt.UUCP (John Temples)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Why unix doesn't catch on
Message-ID: <253@jwt.UUCP>
Date: 5 Apr 89 18:42:28 GMT
References: <1922@dataio.Data-IO.COM>
Reply-To: john@jwt.UUCP (John Temples)
Organization: John W. Temples, III -- Orlando, FL
Lines: 29

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.

Hmmm.  I use Microport System V/386, Interactive 386/ix, and Venix/286
regularly.  I have no media compatibility problems between them.  In fact,
I sometimes format diskettes on 286 Unix for use on 386 Unix because the 286
has a faster format program.

>2. Lack of binary compatibility.
>	Can't compile on one unix and run on another, even if the
>	hardware is the same. 

Hmmm.  On the above mentioned Unix versions, the two 386 versions have full
binary compatibilty.  And executables generated on the 286 version run just
fine on the 386 versions.  Obviously, you can't have binary compatibility
across all different hardware.  But with SVR3.2, the issue of Xenix binary
compatibility is resolved -- all SVR3.2 Unix versions will be binary
compatible on the 386.

>	Source code compatibility simply isn't good enough.

Why not?  What's the big deal about compiling the program being a part of the
installation procedure? 
-- 
John Temples - UUCP: {uiucuxc,hoptoad,petsd}!peora!rtmvax!bilver!jwt!john