kevin@iisat.UUCP (11/17/87)
In article <384@sco>, amys@sco.COM (Amy Snader) writes: > In article <4423@well.UUCP> wolf@well.UUCP (Dwight Leu) writes: > > >"Will your XENIX application run next year when Microsoft drops XENIX and > > switches to UNIX? Not even Microsoft guarantees it." > > Such invective! > Dwight should know better. First "misunderstanding": that Microsoft > is "dropping XENIX and switching to UNIX". Microsoft isn't dropping > anything: they are merging the two products. What the merged > product is called is irrelevant: it was as much born out of XENIX > as anything. As evidence of this, note that AT&T is > paying royalties to Microsoft for the use of the XENIX technology > in the merged product. > > Second "misunderstanding": the implication > that XENIX applications won't run after the merge. > [ paragraph describing Xenix between compatibility between 8086,80826,80386 ] > > Since Microsoft is doing the merge, I'd expect that if they > were forced to break either XENIX binaries or Coff binaries, they'd > do the latter, both because there's more XENIX binaries out > there and as a matter of remaining true to your own. > > --amy > {ihnp4,microsof,amdcad}!sco!abs This reference is from Unix/Xenix World, May 1987, p.13 About the Microsoft announcement : "Programs written for the present Unix System V or for Xenix System V are to run on the combined system *without* modifications." [ the emphasis on without is mine ] This next reference is from Unix/Xenix World, June 1987, p.110 Again, about the Microsoft/AT&T announcement : "will allow applications already developed... on any version of Xenix to run without recompilation on this new official port called Unix V.3/386" [ and to be fair ] "... according to Microport, its recently announced version of Unix V.3/386 will not have Xenix compatibility until early 1988." In other words, everything is coming together so that it doesn't matter WHERE the programs originated from. My understanding of the present situation is that the binaries from both present Unix and Xenix will be able to run without modifications on the new combined Unix. -- Kevin Davies International Information Service (IIS) UUCP: {uunet,utai,watmath}!dalcs!iisat!kevin ----------------------------------------