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From: ok@edai.UUCP (Richard O'Keefe)
Newsgroups: net.micro
Subject: Re: AT&T and the 3B2 (in defense of partitioning)
Message-ID: <4295@edai.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 7-Jun-84 21:59:02 EDT
Article-I.D.: edai.4295
Posted: Thu Jun  7 21:59:02 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 14-Jun-84 06:21:50 EDT
References: <1986@rlgvax.UUCP>
Organization: Art.Intelligence,Edin.Univ.
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     I'm emotionally opposed to unbundling (why can't we be a little
more honest and call it "dismembering") because I'd like to get my hands
on *everything*. But I'm not a computer buyer.

     The claim has been made that dismembering is good for the customer
because it means his 10Mbyte disc isn't cluttered up with things he
doesn't want.  Nice argument.  But it depends on two assumptions:

A)	the only place you have to store software you are not
	using right at the moment is on the 10Mbyte disc.

As we've been told that when you buy a new package, it comes on
floppies, this is evidently false.  The storage cost of getting
programs you're not using at the moment is a drawerful of floppies.

B)	you know exactly what tools you will need when you buy
	the system, and either your requirements never change, or
	when they do change you can either do without anyway or
	be sure of getting the money for your upgrade out of your
	bosses and then afford to wait for the floppies.

This is unlikely to be true either.  There are lots of environments
where it is easier to get another $500 at the time of the initial
purchase than another $200 subsequently.  (E.g. they come out of
different pockets.)

     Given that the text formatters have been split off into a separate
package, I foresee a boom in "roff" lookalikes powerful enough to format
new manual pages.  Standardisation was great while it lasted.  (Have
AT&T noticed that TEX82 is public domain?...)

     Guy Harris says let the market decide.  But there is no reason at
all to expect the market to converge on a rational approach.  There are
quite a few places over here planning to switch from 4.1 to System V.2
when/if V.2 sees the light of day; not because they know it to be
technically superior (or indeed because they've been able to find out
anything much about it; I was at a meeting where a manufacturer's
representative told us that we didn't want 4.?bsd because V.2 had
everything we wanted, and then answered most specific questions by
saying he hadn't the faintest idea and wouldn't have until AT&T let his
company have the documentation) but simply because of the magic of the
AT&T name.  The market will go in whatever direction minimises present
fear, not future regret.

     YES the authors of Unix are entitled to recompense, YES people
shouldn't have to pay large sums of money for programs they don't want,
but what have AT&T done to yacc/lex since V7?  If, for example, yacc
were made to generate Ratfor (or EFL) again, or perhaps Pascal... I'm
sure AT&T have put a lot of effort into the kernel, but that's the bit
everybody buys.

     Yours in waiting for GNU.