waltrip@capd.jhuapl.edu (10/25/90)
There are two topics that have appeared in separate discussions in this newsgroup that I would like to see a vote taken on: 1. How many of you know that your company/organization/institution/self requires the presence of a supported version of X in order to consider purchase of a workstation? 1a. (For those for whom X is a necessity.) Is there a requirement for Motif? Open Windows? 1b. (For those for whom supported X is a necessity.) Does the X support have to come from the workstation vendor or is support from a commercial third party acceptable? Does the commercial third party have to have a contract with the workstation vendor assuring early releases of the OS so that compatibility of X with new releases of the OS is assured? 2. How many of you know that your company/organization/institution/self requires the presence of SLIP support in order to consider purchase of a workstation? All that I've read here and elsewhere about NeXTStep leads me to believe that it is a superior development environment and I'd love to get my hands on a NeXT to find out. With the price/performance advantages of a NeXT, that shouldn't be hard except that, without X, it can't be a player with the large base of existing workstations (Suns, VAXstations, DECstations, HPs, Apollos, etc). Without a properly supported X, there is no assurance that future OS changes won't lead to non-availability of X or that future versions of X will be available on the NeXT. As a result, it would be difficult to justify bringing in even some evaluation units. So that leaves buying one for home. If I could extend my work environment to my home over the telephone line, a NeXT would be extremely attractive. But to do that would require X and SLIP (well, I COULD use DECnet if it were available). Are there many of you out there in a similar quandary? Send mail directly to me and I'll post a summary. c.f.waltrip <waltrip@capsrv.jhuapl.edu> Opinions are my own.