[comp.os.vms] DEC Humor and OSF

stokes@udiego.UUCP (David M. Stokes) (09/29/88)

From the 26 Sept. 1988 `Digital Review' (used w/o permission)

CANNES, France -- VMS is more compliant with the spcifications of
the Open Software Foundation (OSF) than any other operating system
available today, DEC President Ken Olsen said on the second day of 
the DECworld show, held here.


-- 
David Stokes                        Directions to my office: 1). Find USD,
Academic Computing Department       2). Go to the bottom of Serra Hall, 
University of San Diego				3). Look for the door marked `MEN'
(619) 260-4810 or {ucsd|ucsdhub}!udiego!stokes

chet@pirate.CWRU.EDU (Chet Ramey) (09/29/88)

>From the 26 Sept. 1988 `Digital Review' (used w/o permission)

>CANNES, France -- VMS is more compliant with the spcifications of
>the Open Software Foundation (OSF) than any other operating system
>available today, DEC President Ken Olsen said on the second day of 
>the DECworld show, held here.


And VMS, with it's peculiar mixture of Bliss and VAX assembly language, is
supposed to port with very little pain to all the machines that the OSF
wants to offer support for? (At least, I would assume, those of the 
sponsoring corporations.)  C'mon, Ken!  Get real!  VMS, though it has its
good points, is simply not as portable as a variant of Unix.

I guess Digital is quite sure that it can control the OSF, like it seems to
be quite sure that it will control the evolution of the X Window System.  This
despite all the assurances that "the OSF is not controlled by any corporation;
it is an independent entity".
| Chet Ramey            chet@cwjcc.CWRU.EDU    chet@alpha.CES.CWRU.EDU
|
|		Just another jerk takin' pride in his work...

kvc@nrcvax.UUCP (Kevin Carosso) (10/03/88)

In article <96@cwjcc.CWRU.Edu> chet@pirate.CWRU.EDU (Chet Ramey) writes:
>
>>From the 26 Sept. 1988 `Digital Review' (used w/o permission)
>
>>CANNES, France -- VMS is more compliant with the spcifications of
>>the Open Software Foundation (OSF) than any other operating system
>>available today, DEC President Ken Olsen said on the second day of 
>>the DECworld show, held here.
>
>
>And VMS, with it's peculiar mixture of Bliss and VAX assembly language, is
>supposed to port with very little pain to all the machines that the OSF
>wants to offer support for? (At least, I would assume, those of the 
>sponsoring corporations.)  C'mon, Ken!  Get real!  VMS, though it has its
>good points, is simply not as portable as a variant of Unix.

You are missing the point completely.  OSF does not describe an operating
system which is to be ported to various hardware flavors.  OSF describes
a set of standard interfaces which applications use to work with the
operating system under which they are running.  Whether that operating
system be VMS or UNIX or XYZ or whatever makes no difference to OSF or
-- and this IS the point -- to the application.

Anyone can create the OSF interface layer for whatever OS they choose.
DEC will do so for VMS and K.O. says it'll be easy.  I don't think that's
something we can judge.  If you are a hardware vendor and you want an
OSF compliant interface to your operating system and you don't already
have an operating system, then you'd be a fool to port an OSF compliant
VMS to your machine.  You're much much more likely to port a UNIX variant
along with some portable OSF interface that goes with it.  DEC already has
VMS, they don't give a damn about porting an operating system, they don't
have to, they just need to provide the OSF interface layer.

        /Kevin Carosso                     kvc@nrc.com
         Network Research Co.              kvc@ymir.bitnet
                                           kvc@nrcvax.uucp

jsdy@hadron.UUCP (Joseph S. D. Yao) (10/06/88)

In article <96@cwjcc.CWRU.Edu> chet@pirate.CWRU.EDU (Chet Ramey) writes:
>>From the 26 Sept. 1988 `Digital Review' (used w/o permission)
>>CANNES, France -- VMS is more compliant with the spcifications of
>>the Open Software Foundation (OSF) than any other operating system

>And VMS, with it's peculiar mixture of Bliss and VAX assembly language, is
>supposed to port with very little pain to all the machines ...
>						..  VMS, though it has its
>good points, is simply not as portable as a variant of Unix.

Unfortunately, the new version 3.0 of Ultrix is just as unportable as
VMS.  It requires language processors to compile it that are written
in "half a dozen languages" under VMS (DEC versions of PASCAL, BLISS,
C, FORTRAN, etc. - I wouldn't be surprised if PL/1 - and Macro-32).
Since all of these are not yet ported to the "equally supported"
Ultrix OS, they are compiled on a VMS system, binary-patched via an
automated version of what until recently was a manual patch list, and
then linked with Unix support libraries under Ultrix.

SOMEBODY hasn't learned good software engineering practices.  Or could
they be (unproven supposition follows) trying once more to lock users
into the DEC world???  I wish they hadn't hired those sales managers
from IBM!!!!!

In all fairness, the versions of Ultrix I've seen so far have had some
excellent ideas in them.  I've had to fix a lot in every one ... and
the distributed source code doesn't always compile into the
distributed binaries ... but excellent ideas, and sometimes good
implementations.

	Joe Yao		jsdy@hadron.COM (not yet domainised)
	hadron!jsdy@{uunet.UU.NET,dtix.ARPA,decuac.DEC.COM}
	arinc,att,avatar,blkcat,cos,decuac,dtix,\
	ecogong,empire,gong,grebyn,inco,insight, \!hadron!jsdy
	kcwc,lepton,netex,netxcom,phw5,rlgvax,	 /
	seismo,sms,smsdpg,sundc,uunet		/

[All of the foregoing is derived from a combination of observation and
 discussions, but remains my opinion only.  -jsdy- ]

peggy@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Peggy Shambo) (10/08/88)

In article <790@hadron.UUCP> jsdy@hadron.UUCP (Joseph S. D. Yao) writes:
>In article <96@cwjcc.CWRU.Edu> chet@pirate.CWRU.EDU (Chet Ramey) writes:
>>>From the 26 Sept. 1988 `Digital Review' (used w/o permission)
[ a lot of stuff about VMS..... ]
 

C'mon folks.  Maybe someone actually _thought_ that article was humorous
to start, but can't you take it on over to another newsgroup now?  This
debate isn't what I come here for.  (remember?  this is the humorous group?)
I have enough tech-talk on the job, I want to relax now.
 

Oh, I know... you guys are the jokers, right?   :-)
 
Peg Shambo

harkavy@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Elliot G. Harkavy) (10/11/88)

C'mon guys give me a break.

Maybe some of you Geeks find technichal specs funny, but most people don't.

There are plenty of BBoards for the discussion of technical specs.

I read them if I want to see them. 

Call me crazy, but I like to read rec.humor for JOKES.

Please reserve your tech specs for some other more appropriate BBoards.

		Thank you for your support.

 

scj@meccsd.MECC.MN.ORG (Scotian) (10/12/88)

In article <5531@netnews.upenn.edu> harkavy@eniac.seas.upenn.edu.UUCP (Elliot G. Harkavy) writes:
>Maybe some of you Geeks find technichal specs funny, but most people don't.
>Call me crazy, but I like to read rec.humor for JOKES.

I second this!
-- 
..............................................................................
Scott C. Jensen
scj@mecc.MN.ORG

arosen@hawk.ulowell.edu (MFHorn) (10/13/88)

In article <1043@meccsd.MECC.MN.ORG> scj@meccsd.UUCP (Scotian) writes:
>In article <5531@netnews.upenn.edu> harkavy@eniac.seas.upenn.edu.UUCP (Elliot G. Harkavy) writes:
>>Maybe some of you Geeks find technichal specs funny, but most people don't.
>>Call me crazy, but I like to read rec.humor for JOKES.
>
>I second this!

*flame on*

Take a look at the newgroups line.  It reads:

  rec.humor,comp.os.vms,comp.sys.dec

You can edit it all by yourself.  It's not a privilege reserved
for us techincal geeks.

I can't speak for other readers of comp.os.vms/comp.sys.dec, but
I've been getting pretty tired of seeing these 'wrong newsgroup'
flames to articles in the newsgroups in which they belonged.

I've redirected followups to rec.humor (which I don't read).  You
can flame yourselves over there.

*flame off*

Andy Rosen           | arosen@hawk.ulowell.edu | "I got this guitar and I
ULowell, Box #3031   | ulowell!arosen          |  learned how to make it
Lowell, Ma 01854     |                         |  talk" -Thunder Road
                   RD in '88 - The way it should be

pshen@mit-atrp.UUCP (Paul Shen) (10/18/88)

In article <1857@ddsw1.MCS.COM> peggy@ddsw1.UUCP (Peggy Shambo) writes:
>
>Oh, I know... you guys are the jokers, right?   :-)
> 

Does that mean 'comedian=joker' or 'humor=joke'?

						Paul