lauren@RAND-UNIX.ARPA (12/29/84)
Considering how much people seem to like hassling AT&T in this group, what I'm about to say will be unpopular, but even so... [I was going to make this long and detailed, but I'll give you a break and make it short...] I think AT&T is doing the right thing by discouraging, as strongly as possible, the continued use of the older systems, which are not supported and have no reasonable growth paths. AT&T is trying to act like a responsible software business now that they're allowed to, and that includes not selling old software, missing many features that people now expect and with old bugs as well. By only selling what they are geared up to support, they are positioning themselves in the same manner that we would expect from any responsible company. If I were them, I might not even be willing to send out those old V7 tapes, just to avoid confusion. Those old systems are NOT products today, while System V is. I don't blame them in the least for not wanting to keep licensing umpteen different systems with who knows how many additions and changes. AT&T is in a massive fight (so to speak) with IBM and other companies over software, much of which is incredibly primitive compared to Unix. Even those other companies generally only sell what they can support, including upgrades, fixes, and more mundane customer support. By making System V *the* product, AT&T has a reasonable chance of providing organized feature and capacity growth paths. Having spent many years trying to merge stuff from V5, V6, V7, PWB, UNIX/32 and several other systems, each time cursing at variations between the systems, I can well appreciate their desire to finally straighten out the mess and allow a more orderly evolution. Many companies wouldn't make old, unsupported software available at ANY price, period. And they'd frequently be fully justified in refusing to distribute that old [dead end] code anymore. No doubt nobody else will agree with my view publicly, but having spent over 10 years working with Unix (starting with Versions 5 and 6 [not to be confused with System V]), I feel that I'm in a position to have a reasonable backround from which to speak. Today, software that cannot be reasonably supported should not be distributed at all, in my opinion. We are no longer just playing with toys. [One reporter's opinion, as George Putnam used to say...] (I'll be away from the terminal for awhile, so don't be surprised if I don't respond to the flames this message will no doubt generate.) --Lauren--
gwyn@BRL-VLD.ARPA (12/29/84)
I agree with Lauren!
isis@utzoo.UUCP (n) (12/31/84)
I agree whole-heartedly. Since ATT is only supporting System V, then
a window of opportunity beckons. It seems logical that a various unix
support houses should shrill their support for NON-system V unixes.
What is a support nosebleed for ATT, is the/may be the lifesblood
for small companies. All depends on the view point.
Bill McLean @ Ont Ministry of Health
{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!bill
--
---------
BillMcLean @ Ont. Ministry of Health
{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry