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From: guy@rlgvax.UUCP (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: net.followup,net.micro
Subject: Re: AT&T and the 3B*2
Message-ID: <1983@rlgvax.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 2-Jun-84 21:56:07 EDT
Article-I.D.: rlgvax.1983
Posted: Sat Jun  2 21:56:07 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 5-Jun-84 08:15:34 EDT
References: <425@hogpc.UUCP> <2727@brl-vgr.ARPA>, <1971@rlgvax.UUCP> <692@cp1.UUCP>
Organization: CCI Office Systems Group, Reston, VA
Lines: 36

> For years we have described Unix as a very
> powerful software tool kit. I don't know why
> that description should be scraped. Are the
> users outside the old Bell System that different?

UNIX is a lot of things: it's a portable OS, it's an OS which doesn't make
life difficult by excessive idiot-proofing (for instance, you're not forced
to use one of a small set of OS-supplied file formats), and it's an OS which
comes with a lot of tools and facilities to glue those tools together.
The third is useful to those shops with the expertise to build systems out
of those tools *and* willing to put up with the limitations of those tools;
the second is useful to application developers, and as such indirectly useful
to the user community; but, frankly, the first is the reason it'll make it
in the mass market.  If you consider it *only* to be a powerful software
tool kit, its appeal will be considerably limited.  Remember, few of the
potential customers for computers are as sophisticated as "we" are.  That
description shouldn't be scrapped, but it shouldn't be a definition, either.

It's not a question of users inside vs. outside of the old Bell System.
It's a question of old-time UNIX users vs. new computer users to whom
UNIX is just another name; what they care about is "how much software can
I buy" - buy, not build - "for this system".  UNIX's portability will,
with luck, expand the amount of software available for it, because you can
write software for UNIX rather than for a Frobozz, Inc. BX-9000 Superdupermicro.
Most of the ones wanting compilers, etc. will want COBOL and BASIC compilers
rather than C compilers.  We can all ritually deplore this state of affairs,
but there isn't a heck of a lot we can do to change it.  The day of the
UNIX hacker isn't going away - there are OS/360 (and successors) hackers out
there, and TOPS-10 hackers, and TOPS-20 hackers, and VMS hackers, etc. - but
the average small business probably doesn't have a MS-DOS or Basic Four (or
whatever small business computer system they have) hacker in house.  And
that's the big market - the people out there who *don't* have computers, not
the people who do.

	Guy Harris
	{seismo,ihnp4,allegra}!rlgvax!guy