Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!brl-adm!adm!bzs@bu-cs.bu.EDU From: bzs@bu-cs.bu.EDU (Barry Shein) Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards Subject: Merged Unix (was Re: ACCESS TO SHARED TAPEDRIVES) Message-ID: <10870@brl-adm.ARPA> Date: 15 Dec 87 23:45:41 GMT Sender: news@brl-adm.ARPA Lines: 35 >People like Apollo might not take kindly to supporting Sun >functionality! > > >-- > David Robinson elroy!david@csvax.caltech.edu ARPA [nothing I say below refers specifically to Apollo, it was just whom the poster chose to use as an example] Such vendors would have to realize that the advantages can far outweigh the disadvantages. One of the biggest advantages will be that the software vendors selling the applications (eg. databases) should find it much easier to list your hardware systems as supported. I think any salesperson would confirm that the lack of some application package is what loses the big sales in the workstation and other markets (oh, they don't sell the FOO database software on your system, gee, I'm sorry, we can't live without that...) Product differentiation based upon incompatibility rather than innovation is a fool's path to hegemony. This of course does not exclude super-setting, particularly when aimed at extending the standard in concrete ways (eg. adding a parallel scheduler for systems with such hardware.) Basically it just commonizes the base as much as SYSV and BSD did in the past (except now there would be one instead of two, and it will be extended to reflect current trends such as window systems and networking in a sufficiently standard manner to allow software developers to target the interface and know it will work on many systems.) Apollo et al compete with AT&T right now (well, no comment) on the hardware front, really no difference in the end, just broader standards to work from. -Barry Shein, Boston University