Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83 v7 ucbopal-1.9 BSD 4.2; site ucbopal.CC.Berkeley.ARPA Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!ucbvax!ucbtopaz!ucbopal!tut From: tut@ucbopal.CC.Berkeley.ARPA Newsgroups: net.unix Subject: Is System V going down the tube? Message-ID: <205@ucbopal.CC.Berkeley.ARPA> Date: Mon, 1-Oct-84 01:13:59 EDT Article-I.D.: ucbopal.205 Posted: Mon Oct 1 01:13:59 1984 Date-Received: Tue, 2-Oct-84 05:54:39 EDT Organization: Univ. of Calif., Berkeley CA USA Lines: 34 According to an advertisement for SCO in the latest "Unix Review", Xenix constitutes almost 80% of installed Unix systems on micros. I didn't believe it at first. But in a recent issue of "The Yates Perspective" (a marketing newsletter), there was a pie chart of installed Unix systems, broken down as follows: Xenix 77% Version 7 20% System III 3% (System V must be 0%) The funny thing was that another pie chart showed that 23% of the vendors sell System III, thus chasing 3% of the market! Frankly, this shocked me. Up till now I've believed AT&T's propaganda that System V will become the standard Unix-- an indication, I thought, that the market can't make informed technical decisions. Maybe the market is smarter than I thought. What does System V have that Version 7 doesn't have, besides termcap and vi (which have been in Xenix for a long time)? Shared memory? (big deal). An incompatible terminal driver? An incompatible init? A few incompatible library routines? The cut and paste programs? Remember that Xenix is Version 7 based, with Berkeley enhancements, and System III compatibility. Thus, 97% of Unix micros are running Version 7. The IBM PC/AT has been announced with Xenix, and although I've heard rumors that Interactive's (System III based) PC/IX will be available for it, this hasn't been stated in any IBM advertising. If I were writing piece of commercial software, I would make damn sure it ran on the PC/AT under Xenix, and I would strive to eliminate all System V dependencies in the code! Bill Tuthill (as a private citizen)