Path: utzoo!utgpu!utstat!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!mcgill-vision!dedic
From: dedic@mcgill-vision.UUCP (David Dedic)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Why unix doesn't catch on
Message-ID: <1499@mcgill-vision.UUCP>
Date: 13 Apr 89 17:47:32 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: dedic@datac.UUCP (David Dedic)
Organization: McGill University, Computer Vision and Robotics Lab
Lines: 28

Hi,
	As several people, notably Messrs. Denninger and Davidsen have pointed 
out Mr. Bright was incorrect in some of his statements. This however does
not mitigate his point that UNIX compatibility is required prior to general
acceptance of the OS.
	The advantage that MS-DOS and OS/2 have is that they are essentially
developed by a single organisation (Microsoft). Thus a "standard" is easy
to maintain, it is tyranically allocated from above. 
	I agree with Mr. Bright that small developers find that a more
comfortable milieu. I certainly do. 
	One question how did the various suppliers of PC-UNIX ever agree on 
system call management? Does this mean that two competing micro-software
vendors actually talked to each other outside a court room? Ubelievable ;-}
	
	In answer to Mr. Bright, UNIX is tending towards higher compatibility
this is the goal of the OSF and Archer Group/Sun efforts. Furthermore
the GNU/Copyleft effort is pushing for global source distribution...i.e
no more binary distributionswhich may or may not work. If it does not work 
and you still need it then you can hire a hacker to fix it.

	All of these forces are out in the UNIX world and their results
bear watching.


	The above are my own opinions and should not be construed 
as neither policies nor opinions of my employer(s).

						Dave Dedic