Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!RAND.ORG!salzman%iris From: salzman%iris@RAND.ORG (Isaac) Newsgroups: comp.windows.news Subject: Re: Is SUN a "PURE PLAYER" in window systems - SunView or OpenWindows??? Message-ID: <8912162135.AA03025@iris.rand.org> Date: 18 Dec 89 12:37:29 GMT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 144 >No, this sounds like deliberate evasion. All the Sun press releases >and speeches and brochures and stuff talk about Open Windows as if it >was real, but Sun still ships the old SunView stuff and doesn't ship >Open Windows *with the system*. yup! all talk, no action. don't count on seeing OpenWindows shipped with SunOS until SVR4/SunOS, which is quite a ways off. >Calling it a "Developers Release, SPARC Only" would be fine -- just stop >telling the press and the customers that Sun is 100% behind Open >Windows, leaving them with an ugly surprise when the system arrives. >Also, I thought the Intel and Motorola ports would be out in October: >> Sun is now shipping OpenWindows 1.0 on SPARC machines. Sun-3 and Sun386i >> versions will start shipping in 30 days. >> >> OWN-1.0-4-4-5 SPARC -- Doc and Media $ 295 ND ** 9/25/89 >> OWN-1.0-4-3-5 Sun-3 -- Doc and Media 295 ND ** 10/25/89 >> OWN-1.0-4-R-5 386i -- Doc and Media 295 ND ** 10/25/89 >(Note the dates in the last column.) >> This means that you can buy one copy of the media and >> documentation and run it on as many Sun workstations as you like. hey, i thought the SPARC release would be out in SEPTEMBER!!! that announcement looks to me like a blatant lie. those dates are completely bogus. yes i know it's a developers release and that it's not an FCS product. but when you make announcements like that, please explain what a developers release is! the above announcement gives me the impression that i can place an order and expect it to arrive within a reasonable amount of time (with their s/w shipping record, that'll be about a month, which really isn't reasonable but....), and that's not the case. the case is, as i found out from the SUG conference - that they are (severly) limiting the number of copies shipped. >Oh, really? Can I upload it to uunet and let anybody FTP it or uucp it >from there? Can I put it on the Sun User Group tape? Can I send it to >the guy in Europe who is getting a runaround from his sales office but >keeps seeing postings from other people who have it? If so, why didn't >Sun just do all this stuff? Or simply put it on the next &%^$ Unix >release! according to their release notice, we should be able to get it via FTP or UUCP. the RTU is part of SunOS. yeah, right. the RTU is limited to some X-hundered of preferred customers. why? because they aren't ready to support it yet with 1-800-USA-4SUN. why can't they just make that fact explicit in the RTF and ship the thing already!!?? i can't think of one GOOD reason, can anyone else? >> At the current time, OpenWindows is a Developers Release. We are not >> recommending it to the general end user community at this time. As a >> result, SunView is still bundled with all of our systems and is the >> default window system for Sun workstations. >And with this policy, it sure will stay that way. no kidding! so far everything they've done has accomplished nothing but decrease the likelyhood of the products success. they are simply killing it. if they wait long enough, they won't have to ship it at all. they can just bury the tapes and it'll be done with! consider this. many people are interested in Open Windows because the MIT X11R3 server for color Sun's is pathetically slow. if you've got a machine with enough memory to run Open Windows, the color performance blows away MIT X11R3. these customers (and maybe there are only a few), will want Open Windows only for X11 and may have no interest in NeWS. but at least they'll have it in their hands, and maybe they'll try it, and maybe they'll like it! so there's some potential for turning more people on to NeWS. but hey, X11R4 is due out next month. and guess what, the Sun color server is (from all reports that i've heard), a LOT faster than the X11R3 server. so people getting X11R4 will be quite happy and won't have any interest in Open Windows. just keep holding those tapes back.... >Will OpenWindows be bundled in SunOS 4.1, or will we have the same >story for another whole year? it'll be the same old story.... and get this. sun announces their new DeskSet utilities - a (really nice) calendar tool, print tool and tape tool, to go along with the other DeskSet tools - the filemgr, etc. - that come with Open Windows. but these new DeskSet tools are not XView programs - they are not for Open Windows. they are SunView programs! someone please explain the rationale behind this brilliant move. these, along with SunWrite/SunPaint/SunDraw, should all be Open Windows tools (written with XView or The NeWS Toolkit). how are they supposed to promote Open Windows by providing new SunView tools??!!!! and these new tools are really nice. they implement Open Look with a 3D look - real slick. and Open Windows (for those few that have it) is still 2D only. i've been running Open Windows for quite some time now - because we were fortunate enough to get into their beta/special program. it's some pre-FCS release (well, there's no FCS release - so pre-developers release i guess). but i've used their current release at SUG, and they are quite similar, so for all i know it's the same thing they're shipping (in very limited quantity). but i can't know since i can't seem to get my hands on the "released" version. whatever version it is ... i like it A LOT. i'm sure that given the opportunity to run it, so will other people!!! keeping it under lock and key isn't going to do anyone any good. in a way, i see another Xerox happenning. you've got some brilliant people at Sun developing some brilliant products: Open Windows, which includes NeWS, XView, Open Look, and GUIDE as a separate future product (i tried this at SUG, it's GREAT). but their marketting people are killing it. they are being totally wishy-washy. introducing some new products under SunView, some under Open Windows. so if you really want to be up to speed you have to run both! i don't like SunView - because it's not a network based window system. i don't care about running SunView applications under Open Windows. i bet if they gutted the SunView compatibility it's performance would improve DRAMATICALLY!! most of Sun's SunView tools have XView equivalents. many commercial products (will) have X11 (and hopefully NeWS, but not at the rate Sun's going) versions. if you need SunView support, use something like overview or adjacentscreens, but take the overhead out of Open Windows. i also happen to like Open Look. but somehow Motif has taken hold. as far as i'm concerned, Motif is a joke. it may have a nice "look" (the 3D is real cute), but the feel sucks. Open Look goes out of its way to have a good feel and to be consistent (my opinion of course). i've tried a few versions of a Motif X11 window manager. the mouse actions that de-iconify a window on one version ended up killing the window on another version (because it brings up a menu with the default action of killing the window). lots of thought went into that i'm sure. why has Motif taken hold? who knows. XView, a freely available X11 toolkit which implements Open Look, has been out there for a while, but not long enough i guess. it's just very depressing to see what i (and i'm sure many readers of this list) consider to be superior technology end up in the dust because of poor management and marketting decisions. NeWS should've been made public (in the sense that NFS was) a *long* time ago. care to guess what would've happened? Open Windows should be made available to everyone and anyone that wants it. MIT doesn't have a 1-800-USA-4X11, they have xpert@expo.lcs.mit.edu. the people that want Open Windows *now* can support themselves! c'mon Sun, get it together. what good are Open Windows if they are covered by iron bars??!!! -- * Isaac J. Salzman ---- * The RAND Corporation - Information Sciences Dept. /o o/ / * 1700 Main St., PO Box 2138, Santa Monica, CA 90406-2138 | v | | * AT&T : +1 213-393-0411 x6421 or x7923 (ISL lab) _| |_/ * Internet : salzman@rand.org / | | * UUCP : !uunet!rand.org!salzman | | |