dkc@hotlr.ATT (Dave Cornutt) (06/02/88)
The following are my opinions only. I hope that my .signature disclaimer would make that clear, but I'm saying it here anyway just in case. This is not an attempt to pick on Henry Spencer or anyone else in particular; I just chose a qoute from him because it was the first one I found while grepping articles. This is not an attempt to start a flaming war. I don't particularly care to start another round of SysV vs. BSD arguemnts, especially since the point will probably be moot a year from now. I just think that there are some people who are being done an injustice in this newsgroup, and I want to give them their due. In article <1988May29.004027.4179@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes: > And the major experience we've had so far with university control of Unix, > to wit BSD, has not been exactly encouraging to those who prefer software > to remain compatible unless there is a good reason to change it. Sorry. I just can't let this go by. I am just about fed up with all of the gratuitous Berkeley-bashing that has been going on here the last couple of months. I know of quite a few people out there who put in long, hard hours (with little or no pay) to benefit every person who uses any Unix system today (even SV versions). Without them driving the development process through the 1098's, we'd all still be using V7 systems, and Unix would never have gotten to where it is now. Sure, they introduced some incompatible changes and features that were difficult and awkward to use, but before you criticize them for it, remember that in many cases they had *no prior art* to use as a guideline. And without some of those changes, a bunch of stuff that we take for granted today simply would not exist, because no one else would ever take the time and effort, and go through the heartbreak and frustration, of trying to do something for the first time. And Berkeley has been mostly tolerant and good- natured about accepting and incorporating outside suggestions, unlike AT&T, where "Not Invented Here" is a religious dogma. (And don't flame me for speculating, because I'm not... I've seen it first-hand; it is embedded into the highest levels of corporate policy here.) Berkeley has a lot to do with the popularity of Unix today. They kept it alive at a time when AT&T didn't seem to be interested in carrying it any further (partly due to the divestiture, which was a huge distraction and took up a lot of people's time). They carried it to the Vax hardware, which was the up-and-coming thing at the time. They gave it the gift of paging. (Yes, I know that the Vax paging code originated with 32V. When was the last time you used 32V?) They added networking code that has become an indispensible part of today's mini and workstation setups. Without all this, Unix might have died by 1985, pushed out by VMS and other proprietary systems. It's not too surprising that over half of the mini and workstation vendors that entered the market in the mid-80's chose BSD as their porting base. There was no realistic alternative at the time. Just so everyone knows where I stand... I believe that there are a lot of talented and dedicated people at AT&T. The same is true of Berkeley. If you can't accept that someone outside of your own organization or ideological group can ever come up with a good idea, then that's your problem, not mine. I intend to take advantage of good things wherever I find them, whether that is at AT&T, Berkeley, Sun, OSF, or whatever. -- Dave Cornutt, AT&T Bell Labs (rm 4A406,x1088), Holmdel, NJ UUCP:{ihnp4,allegra,cbosgd}!hotly!dkc "The opinions expressed herein are not necessarily my employer's, not necessarily mine, and probably not necessary"
henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (06/12/88)
> ... This is not an attempt to pick on Henry Spencer... Who, me, criticize Berkeley? Nah. :-) > ...I am just about fed up with all of the > gratuitous Berkeley-bashing that has been going on here the last couple > of months. I know of quite a few people out there who put in long, hard > hours (with little or no pay) to benefit every person who uses any Unix > system today (even SV versions)... Actually, I will (and do) admit that Berkeley has done a lot of useful things. In particular, there is one VERY IMPORTANT thing they did that they almost never get credit for, because it's not flashy and obvious. It's easy to notice, and praise, new features (although a bit less of that might be a good idea...). It's not so easy to notice and properly appreciate a solid system. 32V, as released by AT&T, was a very raw and incomplete port. After releasing it, AT&T basically spent several years dithering over whether to do anything further for outside consumption. At around that time, an awful lot of people were interested in Unix on a VAX, since the good old 11's limitations were getting pretty painful. However, most of these people wanted a *production* system, something they could use to do real work, not a flaky experimental system. The significant thing that Berkeley and its outside contributors (e.g. DEC) did was to shake 32V down into a solid system that coped with and exploited the VAX hardware effectively. This is NOT trivial, as anyone who's read the VAX hardware manuals will testify. The eventual System V releases for the VAX didn't do nearly as good a job on it. Note that I am not talking about virtual memory; I'm referring to hardware error recovery, configuration procedures, proper device handling for a wide variety of devices, bad-block support for disks, and so on. None of this is glamorous and sexy, but it makes an enormous difference to people who want a system that *runs* reliably without endless tinkering. In my opinion, this particular effort was what *really* established UCB as a credible "supplier" of Unix. And it was Berkeley's willingness to do this work, and AT&T's unwillingness to do it (or at least, to release the result), that really led to the current schizophrenic situation in the Unix world. For several years, 4BSD -- silly incompatibilities and all -- was the only Unix that a sensible, production-oriented shop would run on a VAX. When AT&T finally got around to doing something along those lines, 4BSD had a large head start. AT&T has been fighting to catch up ever since. We now return you to our normal Berkeley-bashing... :-) > Without them driving the development > process through the 1098's, we'd all still be using V7 systems... Frankly, with a couple of reservations, that doesn't strike me as an enormously bad thing. Going that route would have avoided an awful lot of unnecessary compatibility headaches. There wasn't a lot wrong with V7 that couldn't have been fixed in a backward-compatible way. > ... Sure, they introduced > some incompatible changes and features that were difficult and awkward > to use, but before you criticize them for it, remember that in many > cases they had *no prior art* to use as a guideline. I'll go along with that argument, more or less, for semi-botched new features. I fail to see that it applies to silly, incompatible changes to existing ones. > They gave it the gift of paging. (Yes, I know that the Vax paging > code originated with 32V. When was the last time you used 32V?) Actually not true; 32V used the paging hardware in a limited way but did not do virtual memory, which is what most people think of when they hear the word "paging". By the way, 4BSD virtual memory is a mediocre design with wretchedly messy innards that few dare touch, because they are so cryptic and fragile. It's not an accident that the virtual memory is much the most popular target for re-implementation by Unix-box makers. > They added networking code that has > become an indispensible part of today's mini and workstation setups. However, they were not the first to do this, so this hardly counts as a massive argument in their favor. They also did a number of things that almost got them lynched by the rest of the TCP/IP community; we're still living with the aftereffects of some of those botches. To sum up: Berkeley has made some quite valuable contributions. However, they have also introduced a lot of stupid, incompatible changes that have made life much harder than it needs to be. If the effort that went into unnecessary meddling with working software had gone into useful projects instead -- or even into tossing a Frisbee around on the lawn -- we'd all be even better off. AT&T's problem is inertia and lack of interest in useful changes; Berkeley's problem is an excess of enthusiasm for new and nifty ideas, without adequate consideration of whether they are *good* ideas. This enthusiasm is no problem -- indeed, it's desirable -- in a research lab that produces papers instead of software. But when the end product is software that thousands of sites end up depending on, one could wish for a bit more restraint. -- "For perfect safety... sit on a fence| Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology and watch the birds." --Wilbur Wright| {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry