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