schnable@ihuxf.UUCP (Andrew T. Schnable) (02/29/84)
I'm sure that everyone can agree that the korn shell rules! Too bad that it is only available inside of AT&T, eh? andy ihuxf!schnable
phil@amd70.UUCP (Phil Ngai) (03/02/84)
re: Guy's comment that ksh wasn't released because of the danger that
unapproved versions of Unix might be enhanced with it.
That sounds like cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Then approved versions can't be enhanced with it either.
Does anyone in ATT know who made the decision? Let's all write or phone
in to complain! Maybe this is a plot to increase ATT's revenues?
--
Phil Ngai (408) 988-7777 {ucbvax,decwrl,ihnp4,allegra,intelca}!amd70!phillepreau@utah-cs.UUCP (Jay Lepreau) (03/03/84)
The real "plot to increase ATT's revenues" is Usenet itself....
jab@uokvax.UUCP (03/05/84)
#R:ihuxf:-204300:uokvax:6100022:000:756 uokvax!jab Mar 3 01:00:00 1984 /***** uokvax:net.unix / ihuxf!schnable / 10:46 pm Feb 28, 1984 */ I'm sure that everyone can agree that the korn shell rules! Too bad that it is only available inside of AT&T, eh? andy ihuxf!schnable /* ---------- */ Consider this a stuffy disclaimer. This news group is NOT for discussion of AT&T internal products, nor should it be. It is a general forum for people running Unix and Unix-like systems, and no information should be submitted to this group that shouldn't go to those people. The Korn shell is something that is an AT&T program that hasn't been announced to the "commericial marketplace". It's not your responsibility to announce it. (I also consider the stance "we have it and you don't" to be quite tacky.) Jeff Bowles Lisle, IL
trb@masscomp.UUCP (03/06/84)
Jeff Bowles (uokvax!jab) says that we shouldn't be talking about the Korn shell here, cuz AT&T hasn't announced it for sale. I beg to violently disagree. The Korn shell has (arguable) major advantages over System V sh and 4.2 csh. Nicer command line editing than csh, blindingly fast script execution, job control, etc. It runs sh scripts, it has reasonable sh parsing rather than the braindamaged csh parsing prblems. And it's written in C! ;-) Ksh isn't some internal BTL secret, its guts have been discussed in several talks at USENIX. What keeps it from being released? Not Dave Korn (its author), not some fascist plot on the part of the Bell System to keep it from you. I suspect that lack of sufficient interest keeps this and other Bell System UNIX products from coming outside the Bell System. Lack of sufficient interest on the parts of the bureaucrats who release the stuff, because of a lack of sufficient interest on the part of us hackers. If we want stuff released by AT&T, we should line up outside their door. And yes, that means we should discuss it here. Yes, "we have it and you don't (nyeah nyeah)" is childish. But we should discuss it. Discussing a product whose guts has been described at USENIX isn't like discussing something that's proprietary. Gimme ksh! Andy Tannenbaum Masscomp Inc Westford MA (617) 692-6200 x274
gwyn@brl-vgr.ARPA (Doug Gwyn ) (03/06/84)
The Korn shell was presented at UniForum so its publicly-known features are fair game for discussion outside AT&T.
guy@rlgvax.UUCP (Guy Harris) (03/06/84)
>> I'm sure that everyone can agree that the korn shell rules! >> Too bad that it is only available inside of AT&T, eh? >> andy ihuxf!schnable > Consider this a stuffy disclaimer. This news group is NOT for discussion > of AT&T internal products, nor should it be. It is a general forum for > people running Unix and Unix-like systems, and no information should be > submitted to this group that shouldn't go to those people. > The Korn shell is something that is an AT&T program that hasn't been > announced to the "commericial marketplace". It's not your responsibility to > announce it. That wasn't an "announcement", it was merely a statement of the existence (and superiority) of the Korn shell. Dave Korn described that shell in a paper *given at a USENIX*, so it's hardly appropriate to chastise the man for revealing the secrets of the Knights of the Mystic AT&T Order Lodge. We all know about it, so "stuffy disclaimers" don't fool anybody. However, I am sorely tempted to try turning the S5R2 shell into a Korn shell once we get it; if AT&T wants to "set the standards" they're not going to do it by holding back software and shipping out binary-only releases that work only with their blessed and approved version of UNIX (e.g. the TTY 5620 code). Guy Harris {seismo,ihnp4,allegra}!rlgvax!guy
obrien%rand-unix@sri-unix.UUCP (03/09/84)
From: Michael_OBrien <obrien@rand-unix>
Guy is right. Binary-ONLY distributions are a very disturbing
tendency in AT&T's approach to the UNIX market.
I can categorically state that despite our need for something like
this technology, The Rand Corporation will never purchase 5620 ("BLIT")
terminals as long as their support software is available in binary-only
form.
I could never recommend that any organization with software
maintenance responsibility in the UNIX marketplace buy such a binary-only
package. If this is typical of AT&T's thinking in the deregulated UNIX
marketplace, I take it as a very bad sign.