dae@shire.cs.psu.edu (Dave Eckhardt) (08/04/88)
Digital News, August 1, page 1. "Olsen: OSF Pact Won't Unify Unix" ... Among the highlights of the DIGITAL NEWSmaker[sic] interview: This mag goes in for a sort of weird typesetting style. It's strange in other ways...about 9 issues out of 10 come with a "You MUST fill this card out or your free subscription will end" card. I've filled out and sent, by actual count, three in the past year. Oh, well, it's kind of fun to get. * "Our Unix is going to be proprietary. Proprietary not to be vicious; proprietary because it is going to be so good. We're so sure that we can do better than anybody else." Hm...Ultrix's chown() system call works differently than either SysV's or BSD's (it is *less* useful than either one). They're sort of randomly changing the error messages utilities hand out. I guess I don't know true excellence when I see it. ... * "Is VAX getting old? It's the newest of all the popular systems around. The IBM good ones are older than that, and Unix is a few years older." Hello? Hello? Has this guy heard of the Apple Macintosh? Sun Microsystems? CCI? What does he mean by popular? I hear a rumor that DEC is going to sell platforms based on the MIPS chip. Why, if "VAX" is so young and popular? I guess my main question is: Does this guy believe what he's saying, or does he just hope that enough other people will? What are the implications of either alternative? --Daemon