Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!hao!oddjob!mimsy!aplcen!osiris!mjr
From: m...@osiris.UUCP (Marcus J. Ranum)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards,comp.arch
Subject: Jerry Pournelle on UNIX (From BYTE)
Message-ID: <1495@osiris.UUCP>
Date: 31 Dec 87 22:01:06 GMT
Organization: Institute For Felinographical Studies
Lines: 33
Keywords: dig dis !
From Jan BYTE: (Jerry Pournelle)
"I must say that as I watch the OS/2 story unfold, I do begin to
wonder: if UNIX is ever made stable enough to be put in ROM, so that you
don't need a guru to maintain the system, there's less and less reason why
it won't catch on. I think of little that OS/2 promises that you can't do
with UNIX; and now that American Management Systems has developed the
long-mythical user-friendly UNIX shell, who knows ?
However, UNIX isn't going anywhere without a major backer. The
obvious major backer is AT&T, a company with deep pockets, brilliant
engineers and designers, and a monopolist's attitude toward marketing.
Think how different the world would have been it, a few years ago, AT&T
had bought Apple Computer for its marketing savvy.
At one meeting someone wryly observed that if AT&T would
copy-protect System V UNIX, within 6 months it would be so widespread that
nothing would be able to stop it.
Actually, I suppose the most probably outcome is that a year after
OS/2 comes out, there will be as many OS/2 users as UNIX users, after
which both will continue in parallel and and without actually competing.
UNIX is growing slowly, and OS/2 charging ahead; but while that's the
probable event, it's by no means inevitable. After all, the main objection
to UNIX was that it's too big and too slow - and that applies just as
strongly to OS/2."
Now, see, all these weenies and office managers who read BYTE take
Jerry as gospel truth... I wish he'd go back to cheap sci-fi.
--mjr();
--
Once, there was NO fun...
This was before MENU planning, FASHION statements or NAUTILUS equipment...
Then, in 1985.. FUN was completely encoded in this tiny MICROCHIP...
It contains 14,768 vaguely amusing SIT-COM pilots!!
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!hao!oddjob!mimsy!cvl!umd5!brl-adm!adm!
GUTHERY%ASC%sdr.slb....@RELAY.CS.NET
From: GUTHERY%ASC%sdr.slb....@RELAY.CS.NET (guthery%...@sdr.slb.com)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Jerry Pournelle on UNIX (from BYTE)
Message-ID: <11106@brl-adm.ARPA>
Date: 5 Jan 88 12:46:38 GMT
Sender: n...@brl-adm.ARPA
Lines: 4
OS/2 does things UNIX doesn't. It's benefited from 15 years of learning
and research. SIGOPS shouldn't close its doors. What's the big deal?
Sun tried for both threads and dynamic linking and blew it. There's a
message there.
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!brl-adm!adm!...@violet.Berkeley.EDU
From: m...@violet.Berkeley.EDU (My watch has windows)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Jerry Pournelle on UNIX (from BYTE)
Message-ID: <11129@brl-adm.ARPA>
Date: 5 Jan 88 22:43:11 GMT
Sender: n...@brl-adm.ARPA
Lines: 24
> OS/2 does things UNIX doesn't.
Any OS designed in the last five years that doesn't do things Unix
doesn't has problems. Unless it was designed to be a Unix-or-similar
clone, of course. But then it's probably got other problems.
>> But is unproven. Unix has the benefit of over 15 years of learning
>> and research as well as debugging and enhancing. It's been the
>> subject of intense scrutiny at the source code level.
That's 15 years of debugging and enhancing by a diverse set of people,
of varying abilities and styles. While the semantics of most of the
enhancements is clean, the same cannot be said for the code. And some
of the enhancements look like something slapped on the side of the
system.
A clean OS designed & written with the lessons learned since Unix was
first written has been needed for a while. But a Unix rewrite is a
non-trivial effort, and not liable to happen. So I look for some new
OS to displace Unix. The replacement will have to include replacements
for most/all of the Unix utilities, have the same basic semantics for
many operations, and be at least as portable. That isn't OS/2.
<mike
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!super.upenn.edu!eecae!upba!
unocss!hdr!eric
From: e...@hdr.UUCP (Eric J. Johnson)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Jerry Pournelle on UNIX (from BYTE)
Message-ID: <170@hdr.UUCP>
Date: 6 Jan 88 21:44:58 GMT
References: <11129@brl-adm.ARPA>
Reply-To: e...@hdr.UUCP (Eric J. Johnson)
Organization: HDR Systems, Inc.
Lines: 18
In article <11...@brl-adm.ARPA> m...@violet.Berkeley.EDU (My watch has windows)
writes:
>A clean OS designed & written with the lessons learned since Unix was
>first written has been needed for a while. But a Unix rewrite is a
>non-trivial effort, and not liable to happen. So I look for some new
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Wrong. a Unix rewrite is already in the works. This was mentioned
by Bill Joy at the December Sun Users Group Convention in San Jose.
The new 'enhanced' version of System V will be rewritten from scratch
in C++. The slide he showed had all the major flavors of Unix being
merged back into one product.
Does anyone have any more information on this?
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- Eric J. Johnson UUCP: e...@hdr.UUCP CIS: 72460,11 BIX: ericj --
-- HDR Systems, Inc. Other UUCP paths: codas!hdr!eric ugn!eric --
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!cornell!
rochester!ur-tut!sunybcs!boulder!hao!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!ucsfcgl!pixar!unicom!greywolf
From: greyw...@unicom.UUCP (When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Jerry Pournelle on UNIX (from BYTE)
Message-ID: <232@unicom.UUCP>
Date: 8 Jan 88 21:07:25 GMT
References: <11129@brl-adm.ARPA> <170@hdr.UUCP>
Reply-To: greyw...@unicom.UUCP (When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.)
Organization: Science Computer Center, MCC, Kentfield, CA
Lines: 26
In article <1...@hdr.UUCP> e...@hdr.UUCP (Eric J. Johnson) writes:
>
>Wrong. a Unix rewrite is already in the works. This was mentioned
>by Bill Joy at the December Sun Users Group Convention in San Jose.
>The new 'enhanced' version of System V will be rewritten from scratch
>in C++. The slide he showed had all the major flavors of Unix being
>merged back into one product.
>
A rewrite in C--? Gads, that sounds like an absolute nightmare...
is C really going down and something else taking its place? The least
they could do if they were going to rewrite UNIX is to try and truly
integrate the best of both worlds (i.e. BSD & System V). (Each has its
own good points and drawbacks as I am sure most well-educated programmers
are aware. The problem with integrations is they end up integrating the
drawbacks and forgetting about the good points...)
Does C-- follow the ANSI standards?
Where is the UNIX world going??
--
" <- (2 dots) :: / | \ ...sun!{pixar,island}!unicom!greywolf
Roan Anderson, Local Guru :: : | :
(which doesn't say much) :: : /|\ : war: Invalid argument. (Gov't dumped)
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: =_|_= ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!cornell!
batcomputer!pyramid!mips!mash
From: m...@mips.UUCP (John Mashey)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Jerry Pournelle on UNIX (from BYTE) [really: whither UNIX]
Message-ID: <1261@winchester.UUCP>
Date: 9 Jan 88 21:32:20 GMT
References: <11129@brl-adm.ARPA> <170@hdr.UUCP> <232@unicom.UUCP>
Reply-To: m...@winchester.UUCP (John Mashey)
Organization: MIPS Computer Systems, Sunnyvale, CA
Lines: 89
In article <2...@unicom.UUCP> greyw...@unicom.UUCP (When love and skill
work together, expect a masterpiece.) writes:
>In article <1...@hdr.UUCP> e...@hdr.UUCP (Eric J. Johnson) writes:
>>
>>Wrong. a Unix rewrite is already in the works. This was mentioned
>>by Bill Joy at the December Sun Users Group Convention in San Jose.
>>The new 'enhanced' version of System V will be rewritten from scratch
>>in C++. The slide he showed had all the major flavors of Unix being
>>merged back into one product.
>A rewrite in C--? Gads, that sounds like an absolute nightmare...
>is C really going down and something else taking its place? The least
>they could do if they were going to rewrite UNIX is to try and truly
>integrate the best of both worlds (i.e. BSD & System V). (Each has its
>own good points and drawbacks as I am sure most well-educated programmers
>are aware. The problem with integrations is they end up integrating the
>drawbacks and forgetting about the good points...)
>Does C-- follow the ANSI standards?
>Where is the UNIX world going??
Many of us have used the "Darwinian Selection" model of UNIX evolution
for years;
a) A new "standard" version of UNIX appears. [creation]
b) Everybody takes it, adds extensions, changes to meet local
needs. [mutation]
c) After a while, people notice the chaos of having multiple versions
that differ more than necessary, and there is a struggle to
breed together the multiple versions, saving the good genes.
[selection]
d) Then, "a" happens again.
This happened, in modest ways, for several years inside Bell Labs.
It happened in a big way inside the Labs around 1977-1980, when upper
management realized UNIX was critical to many projects, but varied
randomly more than needed. There was a big, explicit effort to
crunch together: stuff from research UNIX, USG, PWB, Columbus, etc.
The BSD vs V thing is no different, although many people, especially those
who aren't old-timers, seem to treat as a unique event. The natural
state of UNIX, ever since it escaped from Lab 127 is;
a) There are a bunch of features and interfaces that everyone
agrees on. Those are "genes" that have been around a long time.
b) There are a bunch of features where not everyone agrees on,
but there are only a few ways that people do it, often for
historical reasons.
c) There are some things, especially those near the edge of the
state of the art, or for applications that are more special-purpose,
where no one agrees on anything, and it's mass chaos.
Over time, items in b) turn into a), and c) turn into b), and new things
appear in category c).
The BSD vs V thing is in the b) turning into a) category right now.
One has to ask if the proposed ATT+Sun V+BSD:
a) will be the first such animal? [no: many other people already
have heavily-merged versions right now. Look at, for example,
HP/UX, among many.] Saying that the combined
version will finally "end the BSD-V war" is one of the
more amazing things I've seen: a lot of us thought that
most people were ending the war by themselves anyway:
take a look at the number of System-V based systems that
have: sockets, BSD TCP/IP, BSD or other file systems,
long pathnames, better signals, c-shell, etc, etc,
OR the number of BSD-based systems that pass SVID, have
shared memory, semaphores, etc, etc.
b) can look a LOT different from what you'd expect? [how: AT&T
is saying that people investing in SYS V code on 386s and 3Bs will
be OK, and Sun is saying that SunOS user's will be OK also, and
both are saying it will be POSIX-compatible and X/Open-compatible.
Regardless of what's on the inside, it can't afford to break too many
things on the outside.]
Anyway, I don't see why integrations usually save the bad, and forget the
good. I've been involved in several rounds of that in UNIX-land,
and it usually hasn't been true. [If you think some yukky things got
included, you should have seen some of the truly amazing things that
got left out or cleaned up.]
Also, there are enough reasonable
BSD+V or V+BSD hybrids around to offer existence proofs.
Now that AT&T is actually, finally, blessing the idea that it might be
OK to include BSD features, maybe we can all be shipping our hybrids
and not have to worry about whether or not it's heresy to have added
sensible BSD features.
--
-john mashey DISCLAIMER: <generic disclaimer, I speak for me only, etc>
UUCP: {ames,decwrl,prls,pyramid}!mips!mash OR m...@mips.com
DDD: 408-991-0253 or 408-720-1700, x253
USPS: MIPS Computer Systems, 930 E. Arques, Sunnyvale, CA 94086
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!sri-spam!ames!amdcad!sun!
pitstop!sundc!seismo!uunet!grand!day
From: d...@grand.UUCP (Dave Yost)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: UNIX to be rewritten in C++
Keywords: C++,unix,operating systems
Message-ID: <398@grand.UUCP>
Date: 10 Jan 88 20:35:32 GMT
Organization: Grand Software, Inc., 213-650-1089, Los Angeles, CA
Lines: 22
I thought the following would be of great interest to C++ people:
From: e...@hdr.UUCP (Eric J. Johnson)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Jerry Pournelle on UNIX (from BYTE)
Message-ID: <170@hdr.UUCP>
Date: 6 Jan 88 21:44:58 GMT
References: <11129@brl-adm.ARPA>
Reply-To: e...@hdr.UUCP (Eric J. Johnson)
Organization: HDR Systems, Inc.
... a Unix rewrite is already in the works. This was mentioned
by Bill Joy at the December Sun Users Group Convention in San Jose.
The new 'enhanced' version of System V will be rewritten from scratch
in C++. The slide he showed had all the major flavors of Unix being
merged back into one product. ...
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- Eric J. Johnson UUCP: e...@hdr.UUCP CIS: 72460,11 BIX: ericj --
-- HDR Systems, Inc. Other UUCP paths: codas!hdr!eric ugn!eric --
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!cmcl2!nrl-cmf!ames!aurora!
labrea!decwrl!sun!gorodish!guy
From: g...@gorodish.Sun.COM (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++,comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: AT&T/Sun merged UNIX (was: UNIX to be rewritten in C++)
Message-ID: <40109@sun.uucp>
Date: 27 Jan 88 02:46:08 GMT
References: <398@grand.UUCP> <7766@sunybcs.UUCP> <1387@winchester.mips.COM>
<7184@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Sender: n...@sun.uucp
Followup-To: comp.unix.wizards
Organization: Gag in a Bag Family Restaurant
Lines: 20
(Redirecting to comp.unix.wizards; at this point it has far more to do with
UNIX than C++.)
> >I specifically asked Bill Joy about the merging of incompatible Unix
> >features at the Sun Convention, and he stated that all the design
> >specification work had already been done. Specifically, Sockets are
> >to be replaced by Streams, and BSD job control is to be cleaned up.
>
> While I agree with these two cases, I sure hope that whatever is
> done will track the POSIX FIPS (and ANSI C) specs. Otherwise we
> really won't care what the system is like, we won't be buying any.
I don't know why people fear that the merged UNIX would *not* do either of
those. For instance, a lot of the cleanup of BSD job control will probably be
adoption of POSIX job control....
(Disclaimer: I do not speak officially here for AT&T nor for Sun.)
Guy Harris
{ihnp4, decvax, seismo, decwrl, ...}!sun!guy
g...@sun.com
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!munnari!vuwcomp!dsiramd!pnamd!cstowe!greg
From: g...@cstowe.csoft.co.nz (Greg)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: UNIX to be rewritten in C++
Message-ID: <412@cstowe.csoft.co.nz>
Date: 28 Jan 88 12:56:51 GMT
References: <398@grand.UUCP> <7766@sunybcs.UUCP> <1387@winchester.mips.COM>
Organization: Commercial Software Ltd, Palmerston North, New Zealand
Lines: 25
Keywords: C++,unix,operating systems
Summary: Talking to the gods
In article <1...@winchester.mips.COM> m...@winchester.UUCP (John Mashey) writes:
>In article <3...@grand.UUCP> d...@grand.UUCP (Dave Yost) writes:
>>... a Unix rewrite is already in the works.
>
>According to the various things published, AT&T are merging SVR3
>and 4.3BSD (really SunOS) together (not exactly unlike a number of
>UNIXes on the market, like HP/UX, etc) for late 1989.
If the people involved are on the net, could they possibly setup a suggestion
postbox somewhere, perhaps with a periodic journal of responses, so that we,
the users / gurus / whatever can have some input, drop a few suggestions, etc.
Everyone must have some things about Unix they would like to see fixed or
changed. Admittedly, it will probably generate a lot of mail, but we are the
people who make it all happen, who sell, install, praise, program in, hack,
whatever.
Greg Calkin Commercial Software N.Z. Limited,
...!uunet!vuwcomp!dsiramd!pnamd!cstowe!greg PO Box 4030 Palmerston North,
or g...@csoft.co.nz New Zealand. Phone (063)-65955
Disclaimer : This will probably be ignored anyway ! Most things I say are.
Back to cyberspace !
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!brl-adm!brl-smoke!gwyn
From: g...@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: AT&T/Sun merged UNIX
Message-ID: <7192@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Date: 29 Jan 88 18:39:40 GMT
References: <398@grand.UUCP> <7766@sunybcs.UUCP> <1387@winchester.mips.COM>
<7184@brl-smoke.ARPA> <40109@sun.uucp>
Reply-To: g...@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 24
In article <40...@sun.uucp> g...@gorodish.Sun.COM (Guy Harris) writes:
>> >... Bill Joy ... stated that all the design
>> >specification work had already been done.
>> I sure hope that whatever is done will track the POSIX FIPS (and ANSI C) specs.
>I don't know why people fear that the merged UNIX would *not* do either of
>those.
>(Disclaimer: I do not speak officially here for AT&T nor for Sun.)
Ok, here's why people might worry. How can the design specification
work be "done" and the design still track an evolving standard that
has NOT yet been "done"? We also haven't heard the intention of
complying with the standards from the particular crop of people
involved with this project, and I don't think they've been reported
as stating that as one of the project goals. The ones who reassured
us about this previously do not seem to be involved this time. (For
example, the related question, "Does this mean that the merged
Xenix/System V is also going to have the SunOS stuff in it, or will
the result be two separate, different System V products?", hasn't
been answered publicly by an official spokesman, to the best of my
knowledge.)
Of course it would be pretty stupid for the AT&T/Sun merged OS
project to not track the standards, but they haven't been immune
from stupidity in the past.
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!umd5!brl-adm!adm!
bzs%bu-cs.bu....@bu-it.bu.edu
From: bzs%bu-cs.bu....@bu-it.bu.edu (Barry Shein)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: AT&T/Sun merged UNIX
Message-ID: <11558@brl-adm.ARPA>
Date: 30 Jan 88 23:54:55 GMT
Sender: n...@brl-adm.ARPA
Lines: 69
From: Doug Gwyn <g...@brl-smoke.arpa>
>Of course it would be pretty stupid for the AT&T/Sun merged OS
>project to not track the standards, but they haven't been immune
>from stupidity in the past.
I believe the following comment is beyond idle chatter but I'd
rather not get into quoting names etc.
Basically the standards committees have spent most if not all their
time standardizing Unix as it existed in 1978 with a few new items
thrown in here and there (some of which were very important, I don't
mean that to be disparaging, just that the vast majority of the
efforts are devoted to relatively old stuff.) There's nothing wrong
with this, but there's nothing particularly inspired or useful about
it either.
Very little to none of the effort has been dealing with issues like
networking, remote file systems, windowing etc, aka "modern needs".
This is not a damnation, it is simply a statement of fact that on the
one hand standards committees tend to focus on old, well-trod ground
while something as dynamic as the Unix industry desperately needs
acceptable industry standards in these new areas fast, even if they're
only based on widely accepted de-facto standards (eg. TCP/IP, NFS, X,
NeWS), or they're dead.
I believe some folks at Sun and ATT recognized this fact and decided
to plow ahead with a bold super-set of what the standards committees
were working on, determined to present to the industry these badly
needed standards so we could move on to other things quickly.
Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't (Unix itself could be
considered such a bold venture for its time, I'm quite sure any
standards committee of its time would never have approved C as an
implementation language, for example, they only have eyes in the backs
of their heads, as they probably should, and surely would have
considered the issue of a SIL wide open, Bliss, Algol variants, PL/I
etc, as many of you are right now saying to yourselves "but, but, but
whaddabout...", yet to many of us who were around then Unix was
obviously a much needed standard the first day we got it out of the
box and got past Irma Biren's nice cover letter.)
I have no doubt that many are frantically clinging to the concept that
many of these issues such as networking protocols are still wide-open
and shouldn't be standardized on something like TCP/IP. Be that as it
may, but nothing else really exists (eg. you can't say ISO exists,
whether it ever will exist remains an open question) and the rest of
the world needs to get on with things and be able to assume that these
are standards so those "nuisance little things" called applications
can be written. Their adoption by Sun and ATT (not to mention de facto
adoption by dozens of other vendors) ensures that they cannot be way
off the mark, reality is its own excuse. Let's codify them and get on
with the show, I say.
So the issue is not entirely whether or not the ATT/Sun merge tracks
standards as it purports to standardize areas that no current
standards area seems to even be addressing. Obviously this could cause
some incompatibility with standards as they are being written unless
the standards are powerful enough to support these expanded needs. I
suspect the tendency will be to try to do no worse than superset
(there's a fine line between supersets and incompatibility.)
Personally, I consider the ATT/Sun merger a welcome and long overdue
kick in the ass.
-Barry Shein, Boston University
P.S. Again, this is not anyone's official policy, just the situation
as I understand it.
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!unisoft!hoptoad!gnu
From: g...@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: AT&T/Sun merged UNIX
Message-ID: <3991@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: 2 Feb 88 03:59:08 GMT
References: <398@grand.UUCP> <7766@sunybcs.UUCP> <1387@winchester.mips.COM>
<7192@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Organization: Nebula Consultants in San Francisco
Lines: 99
One reason that a merged Unix might not track the standards is if the
standards themselves do not track. There are still incompatabilities
between ANSI C and POSIX (last I heard), and standards committees have
a long track record of producing botched products -- I trust Bill Joy
and Guy Harris and the folks who implement it *as* they write it,
a lot more than I trust committees who write it and later see if it
really works. The busted "multi volume tar" stuff from the POSIX
standard is a great example of camel design by committee.
On the business aspects of the merger, there's a big article in the SF
Chronicle Business section today about "Sun Micro's New Forays Unsettle
Competitors", by Don Clark of the Chronicle. Mostly it explains the
stuff we all know, but:
"Representatives of 15 major computer makers flew to New York to
meet with Vittorio Cassoni, president of AT&T's computer operations.
Not all were reassured.
"`Frankly, the concerns I walked in with I still have,' said
Barbara Shelhoss, Apollo Computer's representative at the meeting.
..."After AT&T's investment with Sun was announced in early
January, the critics gathered in secret at Digital Equipment's Palo Alto
offices. Signatories to a resulting telegram of protest included chief
executives at HP, Tandem Computer, Prime, and Apollo.
"`If there hadn't been an equity stake, nobody's antennae would
have gone up,` said Robert Miller, chief executive of Mips Computer
Systems, who also signed the letter.
..."Some of the critics have suggested fielding a rival Unix
development team, though they would much rather be guaranteed input in
the Sun-AT&T effort.
"`The idea of having one Unix coordinated by AT&T is a major
advantage for the entire industry,' said Ed McCracken, chief executive
of Sun rival Silicon Graphics Inc."
Here's my two cents on the issue (disclaimer: I was emp #5 of Sun,
though I've been gone more than two years). DEC, HP, Apollo, etc were
happy with AT&T controlling Unix when it was clear AT&T was not a
competitive threat. AT&T's inability to sell computers is legendary.
In a tighter partnership with Sun, AT&T might actually be able to make
money at computers, which would give the protesters a major competitor
rather than a pussycat.
DEC, HP, and other major players have certainly had to watch Sun as a
competitor, but the threat was limited by Sun's ability to grow,
increase manufacturing volume, and find new distribution channels.
With AT&T capital, marketing, and distribution channels, they can't
afford to treat Sun as a minor player any more.
Had AT&T come up to them with an offer to buy 20% of their companies,
they probably wouldn't be yelling. But they didn't pick up the ball
with Unix and run as far or as fast as Sun did. I can't see AT&T
coming to HP to define the new Unix standard, I mean HP/UX is probably
OK but it's not worldshaking. Ditto Ultrix. Apollo has been working
hard to cram Unix into their OS but it's still not Unix. These
companies have concentrated on locking their customers into the
existing hardware & software base, not in opening their systems to
innovation and competition, or on enhancing "what is Unix and what it
provides".
Sun has not only defended and expanded the BSD "territory" against
AT&T, while just about everybody else was knuckling under to AT&T's
"consider it standard" marketing blitz, but has also pushed the state
of the art of Unix networking and graphics. Not to mention having the
design sense, technical ability, and skilled negotiation to produce a
merged SV/BSD Unix, ending the years-long split, rather than a "dual
port" or a Unisoft-like mishmash. AT&T showed uncommon sense in
teaming up with Sun, the only company in the Unix market able and
willing to beat them technically.
Considering some of the other companies AT&T bought once it got
de-reg'd, Sun may be its best investment so far.
In summary, I think the 15 companies are bitching because the AT&T/Sun
partnership is a strong competitor.
And a standard for Unix binaries for a particular chip line is a great
idea, which should've happened in 1981 for the 68000, but didn't. That
Sun remembered to do it for the SPARC should bring them roses, not
thorns. This doesn't hurt anybody. One would hope that HP/UX
applications that run on various Spectrum models are all binary
compatible, but of course it doesn't matter to the outside world since
they don't license Spectrum implementations to outsiders. So is their
complaint that Sun is giving away the SPARC design?
I heard that DEC got Tektronix out of the workstation market by
threatening to stop buying Tek graphics terminals -- DEC was their
biggest customer. Maybe the 15 whiners should threaten to switch to
MCI for phone service :-) and see if AT&T responds.
If they are concerned about basing their products on AT&T/Sun-controlled
Unix, why don't they fund the GNU project, like they're funding the X
project, so they and the world can all share a non-AT&T-licensed
Unix like system? A major open-systems effort is probably the right
medicine, if they are feeling a bit green around the gills. This could
even impact the ABI stuff -- who would buy ABI applications in binary
when they could get full sources of a GNU-based Unix?
--
{pyramid,ptsfa,amdahl,sun,ihnp4}!hoptoad!gnu g...@toad.com
"Watch me change my world..." -- Liquid Theatre
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!pyrdc!gmu90x!dolqci!vrdxhq!dgis!csed-1!roskos
From: ros...@csed-1.UUCP (Eric Roskos)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: AT&T/Sun merged UNIX
Message-ID: <262@csed-47.csed-1.UUCP>
Date: 2 Feb 88 14:47:47 GMT
References: <11558@brl-adm.ARPA>
Organization: IDA, Alexandria, VA
Lines: 37
Summary: it's a question of what you're standardizing
In article <11...@brl-adm.ARPA>, bzs%bu-cs.bu....@bu-it.bu.edu (Barry Shein) writes:
> Basically the standards committees have spent most if not all their
> time standardizing Unix as it existed in 1978 with a few new items
> thrown in here and there ...
> Very little to none of the effort has been dealing with issues like
> networking, remote file systems, windowing etc, aka "modern needs".
> [Additional discussion of philosophies of standardization]
One thing to realize is that a standard that is too large and complex is
not likely to be accepted. If standards are to tell people how to build
something (rather than just telling them to accept some existing product
as the standard), they have to be simple enough for people to be able
to build things to meet the standard.
In terms of the "modern needs" above, how much of that is *really*
necessary? For example, for remote file systems you'd ideally like them
to look, to the user, like a local filesystem (with possibly a small number
of maintenance services added, but independent of the normal filesystem
services). Likewise for windowing (an opinion based on experience with
the Macintosh, although I am expecting that discussion of this issue
will reemerge when OS/2 and its Presentation Manager come out, given
experience also with programming under Windows). If you accidentally
standardize a lot of low-level features that turn out to be unnecessary,
you end up severely limiting future growth.
As for networking, issues of protocols should not show up in a mainline
Unix standard, should they? This is not to say someone should not
standardize network protocols (and of course that is being done), rather
that they should not tie in with Unix at the level the current standards
groups are working.
The point being, standards *should* be kept simple, the way the 1978-era
Unix was kept simple. That's the only way you can keep the growth of
complexity under control.
--
Eric Roskos, IDA (...dgis!csed-1!roskos or csed-1!ros...@HC.DSPO.GOV)
"Only through time time is conquered." -- Burnt Norton
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Path: utzoo!henry
From: he...@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: UNIX to be rewritten in C++
Message-ID: <1988Feb7.004543.732@utzoo.uucp>
Keywords: C++,unix,operating systems
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <398@grand.UUCP> <7766@sunybcs.UUCP> <1387@winchester.mips.COM>,
<412@cstowe.csoft.co.nz>
Date: Sun, 7-Feb-88 00:45:39 EST
> If the people involved are on the net, could they possibly setup a suggestion
> postbox somewhere...
I doubt very much that they would be willing to do any such thing. Have you
any idea how much mail they would get? A friend on X3J11 estimated that
*they* got over 1000 proposals for new features to be added to C. That's
written proposals, never mind all the network chatter about it. Merely
reading and responding intelligently to that kind of flood involves quite
significant manpower and expense. Especially since many of the proposals,
in my experience with such things, are thoroughly dumb ideas.
Being realistic, given that it's AT&T and Sun who are doing this, and given
that they're talking about the union of System V and 4.nBSD, they undoubtedly
already have an abundance of dumb ideas of their own. (Taking the union,
rather than the intersection, of the two systems being the first one.)
--
Those who do not understand Unix are | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
condemned to reinvent it, poorly. | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!cmcl2!brl-adm!adm!weiser...@xerox.com
From: weiser...@xerox.com
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: AT&T/Sun merged UNIX
Message-ID: <11722@brl-adm.ARPA>
Date: 8 Feb 88 21:07:13 GMT
Sender: n...@brl-adm.ARPA
Lines: 9
In article <foo> Eric Roskos <ros...@csed-1.uucp> writes:
> One thing to realize is that a standard that is too large and complex is
> not likely to be accepted.
Which is one of the serious problems with the Sun/AT&T merge: can a standard
that has both NFS and RFS, and both X and NeWS, be all that simple? The Phase III
version might be great, but I'm not holding my breath waiting for phases I and II.
-mark
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Path: utzoo!henry
From: he...@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: AT&T/Sun merged UNIX
Message-ID: <1988Feb16.182913.226@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <11722@brl-adm.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 16-Feb-88 18:29:10 EST
> Which is one of the serious problems with the Sun/AT&T merge: can a standard
> that has both NFS and RFS, and both X and NeWS, be all that simple? ...
An observation occurred to me at Usenix: the problem with the people who
talk about bringing SysV and BSD together is that they don't want to narrow
the gap between the two, they want to fill it in.
--
Those who do not understand Unix are | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
condemned to reinvent it, poorly. | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!princeton!udel!rochester!cornell!
uw-beaver!ssc-vax!benoni
From: ben...@ssc-vax.UUCP (Charles L Ditzel)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: AT&T/Sun merged UNIX
Message-ID: <1684@ssc-vax.UUCP>
Date: 19 Feb 88 06:29:10 GMT
References: <11722@brl-adm.ARPA> <1988Feb16.182913.226@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: Boeing Aerospace Corp., Seattle WA
Lines: 20
In article <1988Feb16.182913....@utzoo.uucp>, he...@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
> An observation occurred to me at Usenix: the problem with the people who
> talk about bringing SysV and BSD together is that they don't want to narrow
> the gap between the two, they want to fill it in.
An observation occurred to me last night :) the problem with the people that
are know griping the most about AT&T and Sun bring SysV and BSD together are
the people that would have sold you their very own closed systems yesterday.
:^)
(Did you also notice that their the companies that don't have a large
marketshare in the workstation market OR they are losing market share
REAL fast!!)
Like DEC and Apollo...(Funny DEC and Apollo didn't complain when Mr. Joy
gave them BSD 4.[23]... :^)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Opinions expressed are my own. No one else would have them. :)
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!think!ames!lll-lcc!pyramid!prls!mips!mash
From: m...@mips.COM (John Mashey)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: AT&T/Sun merged UNIX
Message-ID: <1645@winchester.mips.COM>
Date: 22 Feb 88 04:13:44 GMT
References: <11722@brl-adm.ARPA> <1988Feb16.182913.226@utzoo.uucp> <1684@ssc-vax.UUCP>
Reply-To: m...@winchester.UUCP (John Mashey)
Organization: MIPS Computer Systems, Sunnyvale, CA
Lines: 34
(I ESPECIALLY SPEAK FOR ME ONLY!)
In article <1...@ssc-vax.UUCP> ben...@ssc-vax.UUCP (Charles L Ditzel) writes:
...
>An observation occurred to me last night :) the problem with the people that
>are know griping the most about AT&T and Sun bring SysV and BSD together are
>the people that would have sold you their very own closed systems yesterday.
>:^)
This is a drastic over-simplification of a complex issue, which is NOT
a protest of merging BSD & SYSV, which after all, has been done by various
parties before. Having been involved in a number of the relevant meetings,
I can't really say much. I would say that more the real issues have been
surfaced, and attempts are being made to deal with at least some of them
by the appropriate parties. The issues are complicated, and there are
many involved, all with different agendas; by the time things filter thru
the press, it is VERY hard to know what's going on, and almost anything
you see printed is probably at best a partial story!
>(Did you also notice that their the companies that don't have a large
>marketshare in the workstation market OR they are losing market share
>REAL fast!!)
>Like DEC and Apollo...(Funny DEC and Apollo didn't complain when Mr. Joy
>gave them BSD 4.[23]... :^)
Some of this might be rewriting history: I was under the impression that
a number of people had contributed to 4.X BSD, and in fact, had included some
people who at the time worked for DEC. I also thought DEC contributed in
other ways; could somebody closer to this clarify that impression?
--
-john mashey DISCLAIMER: <generic disclaimer, I speak for me only, etc>
UUCP: {ames,decwrl,prls,pyramid}!mips!mash OR m...@mips.com
DDD: 408-991-0253 or 408-720-1700, x253
USPS: MIPS Computer Systems, 930 E. Arques, Sunnyvale, CA 94086
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!benoni
From: ben...@ssc-vax.UUCP (Charles L Ditzel)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: AT&T/Sun merged UNIX
Message-ID: <1696@ssc-vax.UUCP>
Date: 23 Feb 88 02:19:23 GMT
References: <11722@brl-adm.ARPA> <1988Feb16.182913.226@utzoo.uucp>
<1645@winchester.mips.COM>
Organization: Boeing Aerospace Corp., Seattle WA
Lines: 31
In article <1...@winchester.mips.COM>, m...@mips.COM (John Mashey) writes:
> In article <1...@ssc-vax.UUCP> ben...@ssc-vax.UUCP (Charles L Ditzel) writes:
> >An observation occurred to me last night :) the problem with the people that
> >are know griping the most about AT&T and Sun bringing SysV and BSD together
> >are the people that would have sold you their very own closed systems
> >yesterday.
> This is a drastic over-simplification of a complex issue, which is NOT
Of course it is. But there just happens to be alot of truth to it. There
are certainly two sides to this issue. Both Apollo, DEC and the other
companies involved have a vested interested in all this. Apollo (according
to the trade rags) is losing ground quite rapidly in the workstation market.
the year before things were pretty even between Apollo & Sun. Last year
Apollo's share had dwindled to 19% while Sun was up to about 28%. Meanwhile
DEC is trying to become a major player. The posturing and alliances that
are going on now has high stakes for the companies involved. I don't think
anyone is going to convince me that DEC and Apollo would not just as soon
sell you VMS and Aegis (respectively).
> >Like DEC and Apollo...(Funny DEC and Apollo didn't complain when Mr. Joy
> >gave them BSD 4.[23]... :^)
>
> Some of this might be rewriting history: I was under the impression that
> a number of people had contributed to 4.X BSD, and in fact, had included some
Before you take this last comment TOO seriously note that their is a :^) on
it...(obviously Mr. Joy was not the only person involved, i suppose humor
is a matter of perspective :^).
--------------
Naturally my ideas are my own, since no one else would have them.
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!mordor!sri-spam!sri-unix!quintus!
sun!decwrl!decvax!ucbvax!bostic
From: bos...@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU (Keith Bostic)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: AT&T/Sun merged UNIX
Message-ID: <23103@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 23 Feb 88 22:25:30 GMT
References: <11722@brl-adm.ARPA> <1988Feb16.182913.226@utzoo.uucp>
<1645@winchester.mips.COM>
Organization: University of California at Berkeley
Lines: 21
In article <1...@ssc-vax.UUCP> ben...@ssc-vax.UUCP (Charles L Ditzel) writes:
> > Like DEC and Apollo...(Funny DEC and Apollo didn't complain when Mr. Joy
> > gave them BSD 4.[23]... :^)
In article <1...@winchester.mips.COM>, m...@mips.COM (John Mashey) writes:
> Some of this might be rewriting history: I was under the impression that
> a number of people had contributed to 4.X BSD, and in fact, had included some
> people who at the time worked for DEC. I also thought DEC contributed in
> other ways; could somebody closer to this clarify that impression?
Bill Joy had a great deal to do with 4.2BSD, my understanding (worth what
you're paying for it, I wasn't there) is that much of the design was his,
and the implementation was done with Sam Leffler. He had little, if any,
direct input into 4.3BSD.
DEC has contributed the full-time services of four people, at various times,
to the BSD effort; both DEC and SUN have made significant contributions to
BSD software.
--keith
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!mordor!sri-spam!sri-unix!quintus!
sun!pitstop!sundc!seismo!rick
From: r...@seismo.CSS.GOV (Rick Adams)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: AT&T/Sun merged UNIX
Message-ID: <44250@beno.seismo.CSS.GOV>
Date: 24 Feb 88 00:39:34 GMT
References: <11722@brl-adm.ARPA> <1988Feb16.182913.226@utzoo.uucp>
<1645@winchester.mips.COM>
Organization: Center for Seismic Studies, Arlington, VA
Lines: 23
Summary: 4.2bsd credits
The "Preface to the 4.2 Berkeley distribution" which is printed at the
front of the manual set credits:
Bill Shannon (DEC & Sun)
Robert Elz (U of Melbourne)
Rob Gurwitz (BBN)
Eric Allman (Britton-Lee)
Bill Croft (SRI & Sun)
Dennis Ritchie (Bell Laboratories)
Helge Skrivervik (no affliation)
and of course
"numerous others".
That acknowledgement is signed by (note the order):
Sam Leffler
Bill Joy
Kirk McKusick
There are others who are credited with earlier 4bsd releases.
---rick
(Yes, some of the people on the above list do get annoyed when
Bill Joy is credited with developing 4.2bsd UNIX and no one else is mentioned)