root@utoday.com (Superuser) (03/02/91)
Will user organizations ever be effective in steering open systems? Question #1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This question is being posted to gather responses for a regular column in UNIX Today! called "net.views". The purpose of the column is to generate user response to questions of importance in the Unix industry. By sending an e-mail reply to the above question, you are granting UNIX Today! permission to consider your comments for publication. A summary of *all* e-mail responses to this post will be posted in this newsgroup two weeks from today. /* Please include a daytime telephone number! */ ------------------------------------------------------------------------
mark@uunet.UU.NET (Mark Lawrence) (03/04/91)
In article <1991Mar01.185418.1066@utoday.com> you write: } Will user organizations ever be effective in steering open systems? Only to the extent that entities with significant purchasing power are represented in the user organizations. The only reason OSI MAP/TOP are doing _anything_ is because GM made a corporate commitment to it. If the user organizations can extract like firm commitments from their constituent companies, then they've a chance of influencing vendors. Mark Lawrence -- mark@drd.com mark@jnoc.go.jp $B!J%^!<%/!&%i%l%s%9!K(B Nihil novum sub solem
malcolm@uunet.UU.NET (03/05/91)
In article <1991Mar01.203755.16915@utoday.com> you write: >Will user organizations ever be effective in steering open systems? > > I see, still debating whether they tail can wag the dog are we? :-| I think that some of the large user organisations e.g. Boeing, General Motors, Eastman-Kodak, McDonnell Douglas, etc are having a significant impact on the direction of Open Systems. X/Open has a user council with some 29 organisations represented. Also both UNIX International and OSF have user representation. However, offhand I can't give specific examples of how users have influenced these organsations processes. Ultimately, it is the ordinary user who votes for Open Systems with his/her chequebook. The reasons they do so may have nothing to do with the principles of Open Systems (i.e. lower cost) but none-the-less their purchases have a valid effect on the momentum of Open Systems. User still have a choice between proprietary and open and the fact that open is gaining market share speaks for itself. In the final analysis, I believe that the move towards Open Systems is a complex interplay between users and vendors. It is impossible to isolate the influence of one without considering the other, and without both we simply would not have Open Systems. -- Malcolm Stayner - Open System Consultant Email: malcolm@icl.co.nz ICL New Zealand Ltd, P.O. Box 394, Wellington, N.Z. Tel: +64 (4) 724-884 "Intelligence is silence, truth is being invisible, Fax: +64 (4) 726-737 but what a racket I make in declaring this" NED ROREM --- Malcolm Stayner - Open System Consultant Email: malcolm@icl.co.nz ICL New Zealand Ltd, P.O. Box 394, Wellington, N.Z. Tel: +64 (4) 724-884 "Intelligence is silence, truth is being invisible, Fax: +64 (4) 726-737 but what a racket I make in declaring this" NED ROREM
berger@uunet.UU.NET (Bob Berger) (03/07/91)
IMHO, Having User Orgs step into the fray will be the major way we can get past the GUI wars and the FUD factors that the Iron Mongers are bogged down in. These vendors have a vested interest in "differentiating" themselves. Unfortunatly, they use OS's and GUI's instead of price, performance and interoperability. This is a self destructive illusion since it limits the success of the total Unix marketplace pie (and thus the size of the vendor's potential slice) as well as frustrates the users / developers. The real winner of a fragmented Unix enviornment then becomes DOS-Windows-OS/2, IBM and Microsoft :-( *************** You are free to use / edit / correct spelling this. It is my opinion and does not reflect the opinion of my employer. As a mater of fact, please do not put my employer's name in association of this opinion. You can refer to me as a manager of software development if need be. Bob Berger - SONY Advanced Video Technology Center 677 River Oaks Parkway San Jose, CA 95134 408-944-4964 FAX: 408-954-1027 INTERNET: berger@sfc.sony.com UUCP: [uunet,mips]!sonyusa!sfcsun!berger
domo@uunet.UU.NET (Dominic Dunlop) (03/09/91)
In article <1991Mar01.185418.1066@utoday.com> you write: > Will user organizations ever be effective in steering open systems? > Well, writing as the representative of two user organizations to ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG15 (POSIX), I should say that I'll never get to read the answer in UNIX Today!, as the controlled circulation application form that I filled out in the middle of last year elicited no response whatever. Clearly, your circulation department thinks that the answer to your question is, in my case, ``NO.'' I'm not in a position of sufficient influence even to merit receiving your paper. (Maybe I did the wrong thing by actually PAYING for air delivery of CSN until UNIX! Today er... inherited its worthwhile parts.) I look forward to reading the results of your survey when posted. (You should, by the way, also have posted the question to comp.org.usenix.) Herewith, my spleen having been vented, my contact details: Dominic Dunlop USENIX/EurOpen observer at WG15 The Standard Answer Ltd. 9 The Forty Cholsey, Wallingford OXON OX10 9LH U.K. +44 491 652590 +44 491 651751 (fax) -- Dominic Dunlop
domo@tsa.co.uk (Dominic Dunlop) (03/12/91)
In article <1991Mar01.185418.1066@utoday.com> netviews@utoday.com (Mitch Irsfeld) writes: > By sending an e-mail reply to the above question, you are > granting UNIX Today! permission to consider your comments for > publication. A summary of *all* e-mail responses to this post will be > posted in this newsgroup two weeks from today. Those who reply by mail should be warned that responses are apparently echoed straight back onto the the net. While this is a neat-ish trick, it completely negates the whole point of replying by mail -- namely that one does not consider one's message worthy of/suitable for immediate broadcast. Those who want to post in reply are at liberty to do so; those who do not want to do so should not have it done for them. I would counsel UNIX Today to do as it says it will, and SUMMARIZE email responses after they have been accumulated. -- Dominic Dunlop
philip@vogon.cetia.fr (Philip Peake) (03/19/91)
In article <6560.9103091035@tsa.co.uk>, tsa.co.uk!domo@uunet.UU.NET (Dominic Dunlop) writes: |> In article <1991Mar01.185418.1066@utoday.com> you write: |> > Will user organizations ever be effective in steering open systems? |> > |> I should say that I'll never get to read the |> answer in UNIX Today!, as the controlled circulation application form |> that I filled out in the middle of last year elicited no response |> whatever. Clearly, your circulation department thinks that the answer |> to your question is, in my case, ``NO.'' I'm not in a position of |> sufficient influence even to merit receiving your paper. (Maybe I did |> the wrong thing by actually PAYING for air delivery of CSN until UNIX! |> Today er... inherited its worthwhile parts.) I had a similar response to my application - i.e. complete silence. If you ever manage to get onto the circulation list Dominic, maybe you can drop me an e-mail to tell me how you did it. Philip