mrd@sun.mcs.clarkson.edu (Michael R. DeCorte) (04/11/88)
Hello, I have been following (mostly over the net) the deal made between AT&T and Sun to merge BSD and SV (I shall call it V.4). At first thought this seemed great. But the more I think about it the more worried I become. The concept itself I think is great but I keep remembering that the a company's prime directive is to make money. Imagine that the V.4 is just what everyone wanted. Everyone puts it on their computer and all the world is now running V.4. Who wants BSD, Ultrix, Xenix, etc? Nobody. I would guess that the rewrite of V.4 in C++ will be even better, but you probably won't be able to have source. This is good in the sence that all of the Unix boxs will be for the most part identical. This is starting to look good now. But there is this $ in the back of my mind. This is sort of a propietory system now isn't it. I can't get source and the definition is made by a small group of people. It get worse. In 7 or 8 years down the road when everyone is using V.4, what is to keep the price of V.4 reasonable? AT&T and Sun could at any time demand any price they wanted. (sort of like some companies I know) If you want a network of workstations, you have to pay $1000 for the O.S/computer plus $300/year/computer for leasing. You can imagine the rest. The reason I like Unix is not because it is the greatest O.S. in the world. I like it because it is a good O.S. that is cheap and ported to a very wide range of machines. Unix is the only O.S. I know of that is not dependent on one hardware or software manufature.
carroll@snail.CS.UIUC.EDU (04/11/88)
Depending (in some sense) on how the Apple/Microsoft+HP lawsuit
goes, it's not clear that there is anything stopping a 3rd party from
writing their own V.4 compatible OS, and selling it. If AT&T/Sun raise
their price enough, that will happen.
Alan M. Carroll amc@woodshop.cs.uiuc.edu carroll@s.cs.uiuc.edu
Grad Student (TA) / U of Ill - Urbana ...{ihnp4,convex}!uiucdcs!woodshop!amc
Quote of the day :
"Touch my soul, catch the very light
Hide the moment, from my eager eyes"reggie@pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach) (04/13/88)
In article <703@sun.mcs.clarkson.edu> mrd@sun.mcs.clarkson.edu (Michael R. DeCorte) writes: > I have been following (mostly over the net) the deal made between >AT&T and Sun to merge BSD and SV (I shall call it V.4). [stuff deleted....] >This is sort of a propietory system now isn't it. I can't get source and >the definition is made by >a small group of people. I think you are suffering from the same misconceptions as the Hamilton Group was back in February. Right now, most of the variants of Unix are either based upon System V or BSD. It is not a situation where something like Ultrix (to pick one) is radically different from the base system. Of course, there are the vendor specific extensions, etc...., but underneath it is BSD. The merge of System V and BSD means there will be *ONE* base system upon which all other Unixes will be based. Nothing else changes. You can still get the source (who said you couldn't ?). And the definition has always been made by two small groups of people (basically) at AT&T and Berkeley. From what I have read concerning the Menlo Park Project (should have been Menlo Park, NJ - one of Tom Edison's lab sites), input will be taken from other concerned parties outside of AT&T and Sun. However, *they* will decide what goes into it and what does not. I imagine that we will see a working system out of this process long before any standard becomes a reality. -- George W. Leach Paradyne Corporation {gatech,rutgers,attmail}!codas!pdn!reggie Mail stop LF-207 Phone: (813) 530-2376 P.O. Box 2826 Largo, FL 34649-2826
davidsen@steinmetz.ge.com (William E. Davidsen Jr) (04/15/88)
Let's look at where standards originate currently:
SysV AT&T
BSD Sun (sorry, they seemed to have loaned B enough
programmers to get 4.3 out the door)
Xenix Microsoft (in terms of licenses sold they are
the leader, no matter what you think of the hardware)
And who's doing the combined version? Same three. Motorola will be
doing some things, too, but I either forgot or never knew.
What would I like? Fast file system, streams, NFS and RFS, sockets,
TCP/IP, shared memory, SysV semaphores (reliable), shared memory, and
named pipes. SysV paging algorithm, HDB uucp, Xenix system
administration tools.
In a year I'll know if my wishlist is anything like the real
product, but at least we have a chance. I would be interested to hear
anyone's favorite features, and to clarify why I like what I do if
you're not familiar with it.
--
bill davidsen (wedu@ge-crd.arpa)
{uunet | philabs | seismo}!steinmetz!crdos1!davidsen
"Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -memike@turing.UNM.EDU (Michael I. Bushnell) (04/15/88)
In article <10430@steinmetz.ge.com> davidsen@crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen) writes: >Let's look at where standards originate currently: Ummm... > SysV AT&T Right so far. > BSD Sun (sorry, they seemed to have loaned B enough > programmers to get 4.3 out the door) Not right. Let's see if we can figure it out: BSD = Berkeley Software Distribution. Hmmmm...I wonder who does this? Berkeley perhaps? > Xenix Microsoft (in terms of licenses sold they are > the leader, no matter what you think of the hardware) Well, two out of three ain't bad. > And who's doing the combined version? Same three. Motorola will be >doing some things, too, but I either forgot or never knew. Ummm...nope. *Sun*, AT&T, and Microsoft. Not Berkeley. > What would I like? Fast file system, streams, NFS and RFS, sockets, >TCP/IP, shared memory, SysV semaphores (reliable), shared memory, and >named pipes. SysV paging algorithm, HDB uucp, Xenix system >administration tools. Wait for 4.4BSD. From what I hear: Fast file system streams Berkeley RFS (made stateless) sockets TCP/IP Berkeley shared memory (SysV sematics through a library) Named pipes (a/k/a portals) Hmmm... N u m q u a m G l o r i a D e o Michael I. Bushnell HASA - "A" division 14308 Skyline Rd NE Computer Science Dept. Albuquerque, NM 87123 OR Farris Engineering Ctr. OR University of New Mexico mike@turing.unm.edu Albuquerque, NM 87131 {ucbvax,gatech}!unmvax!turing.unm.edu!mike
davidsen@steinmetz.ge.com (William E. Davidsen Jr) (04/21/88)
In article <953@unmvax.unm.edu> mike@turing.UNM.EDU.UUCP (Michael I. Bushnell) writes: >In article <10430@steinmetz.ge.com> davidsen@crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen) writes: > >> BSD Sun (sorry, they seemed to have loaned B enough >> programmers to get 4.3 out the door) > >Not right. Let's see if we can figure it out: BSD = Berkeley Software >Distribution. Hmmmm...I wonder who does this? Berkeley perhaps? Please see my parenthesized remark. Both Sun people and Berkeley people have told me that the bulk of 4.3 changes were written either at Sun and given to BSD, or by programmers actually loaned to Sun. If you know this is not the case please attribute a source to your information. I put the remark in so people could make the connection. I don't care who distributes it (heresy) all I care is who writes it, since that's who should be working on a merged UNIX. -- bill davidsen (wedu@ge-crd.arpa) {uunet | philabs | seismo}!steinmetz!crdos1!davidsen "Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me