*BSD News Article 18190


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From: cflatter@nrao.edu (Chris Flatters)
Subject: Re: "NT is UNIX" or so Bill Gates says!!!
Message-ID: <1993Jul9.171052.799@mr-hyde.aoc.nrao.edu>
Sender: news@mr-hyde.aoc.nrao.edu
Reply-To: cflatter@nrao.edu
Organization: NRAO
References: <qfh1.742181755@crux1.cit.cornell.edu>
Date: Fri, 9 Jul 93 17:10:52 GMT
Lines: 28

In article 742181755@crux1.cit.cornell.edu, qfh1@crux3.cit.cornell.edu (Quazi Haque) writes:
>torre@dbsoftware.com (T-Rex Fodder) writes:
>
>>The following is from Communications Week July 5, 1993 page 8.
>>It is copied without permission.
>
>>Now I want to know WHAT does this mean?!?
>>	IS Gates trying to provoke USL into a lawsuit?
>
>No, he's trying to sell NT as 'all things to all people.'
>
>>	Is NT UNIX??
>
>Well, it's /supposed/ to have a Posix-compliant personality, which would
>make it source-compatible with Posix-compliant unix programs.  I haven't
>tried that out, so I'll let someone else comment on how (or if) that works.

It will only give you POSIX.1 interfaces.  You won't find a awful lot
of programs that use the ANSI C library, POSIX.1 interfaces and nothing
else but this is the only kind of program that will run unchanged in
the WNT POSIX-subsystem.  Microsoft appear to have no plans to extend
the POSIX subsystem.

POSIX.1 compatibility alone does not make a system UNIX.  OpenVMS comes a lot
closer with both POSIX.1 and POSIX.2/2a but still wouldn't qualify.

	Chris Flatters
	cflatter@nrao.edu