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Xref: sserve comp.os.386bsd.misc:2958 comp.os.linux.misc:20724 Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.misc,comp.os.linux.misc Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!msuinfo!agate!darkstar.UCSC.EDU!news.hal.COM!decwrl!uunet!brunix!mhw From: mhw@cs.brown.edu (Mark Weaver) Subject: Re: Usefulness of BSD/Linux Source Knowledge (was BSD vs. LINUX) Message-ID: <1994Jul31.224245.24749@cs.brown.edu> Sender: news@cs.brown.edu Organization: Brown University Department of Computer Science References: <michaelv.775258838@ponderous.cc.iastate.edu> <1994Jul28.025818.6937@escape.widomaker.com> <1994Jul31.044558.12981@cs.brown.edu> <31grdf$o8g@u.cc.utah.edu> Date: Sun, 31 Jul 1994 22:42:45 GMT Lines: 165 In article <31grdf$o8g@u.cc.utah.edu>, Terry Lambert <terry@cs.weber.edu> wrote: >In article <1994Jul31.044558.12981@cs.brown.edu> mhw@cs.brown.edu (Mark Weaver) writes: >] This is the vendors' way of competing with the free OSes. By >] creating a generation of programs that are written to work with >] SysV and Motif, they are giving the market a strong reason to buy >] commercial OSes. The painful move to Solaris was a necessary and >] calculated move on Sun's part. > >This is false. First of all, venders aren't "competing" in the same >space as the free UNIX(R) clones; the clones leave a lot to be desired >in terms of support, commercial apps, etc. > >At best, the clones are research platforms for computer scientists; at >worst, they are simply "hackerware". I strongly disagree with you here. Linux in particular is starting to break into a large market of less technical computer users. Other than universities and large corporations, there seem to be an order of magnitude more people running Linux than any commercial unix, and that number is growing fast. As far as commercial apps go, binary compatibility with commercial unixes like SCO will ease this problem quite a bit. Also, commercial apps are becoming available for Linux, because software companies realize that there's a growing market there. For products that already run on a commercial unix, compiling it on Linux represents a small investment with a potentially large reward. Furthermore, a decent free WYSIWYG word-processor alone could cause a huge influx of "ordinary people" to the free unix clones. This is because each group of computer users is influenced by people with more technical knowledge. Thus there is a trickle-down effect. I, for instance, influence less knowledgeable users to try *BSD or Linux. Remember also that "The Internet" is getting a lot of press, and non-unix OSes are very behind in this area. This also represents a reason for a normal computer user to switch to a free unix. Calling the free unixes hackerware is meaningless to the masses. I've used SunOS 4.1.3 extensively, and from my point of view NetBSD is as close to a "real"(TM) unix I'll ever need. In fact, I prefer NetBSD to both SunOS 4 and 5. Linux isn't quite there yet for my needs, but most people love it. Although I agree with you that the vendors aren't CURRENTLY competing in the same space as the clones, many vendors may be looking at a bigger picture than you are Terry. >] NetBSD, FreeBSD, and Linux should not be fighting against each >] other. They're all remarkable accomplishments, and all have their >] characteristic advantages and disadvantages. Many say that the >] enemy is Microsoft, and this is true. But I also say the enemy >] are the vendors that try to sell for big bucks what we all enjoy >] for free. > >Cut it out. Why do you think many commercial organizations enforce the >non-compete agreements against their engineers who want to do research >outside the scope of their job responsibilities? The only effect your >posting will have is to prevent commercial grade engineers from >participating by making their managment unduly paranoid. My post wasn't intended to soothe the fears of managers, it was to present my perspective on Sun's forced and unpopular switch to Solaris, among other things. >This type of adversarial crap is what causes legal problems. A legally >naieve but technically knowledgable member of the research community >implies that the "target market" of a research project is something >other than research, and a technically naieve but legally knowledgable >member of a commercial interest goes off the deep end. I simply can't >understand why researchers can't respect themselves for doing research, >and have to imply a commercial bent to everything to assuage their >egos. Research is by tself a laudable goal, and publically available >results up the baseline for *all* commercial interests, with a net >benefit to *everyone*. The vendors are extremely interested in the research market, and that's why I'm upset. Even within my university, it's hard to stick to just free software because everyone is pushing System V and Motif all over the place. For my needs, there is very little (if any) value added in this. And getting Sun to do bug fixes is IMPOSSIBLE. I'm honestly quite sure that they'd be better off with NetBSD running on top of the line PCs. For the same amount of money they could get more machines, and run a more stable, secure, and well-supported system. If more universities did this, you can bet your ass it would take a large market share away from the commercial unixes. The reason the vendors are interested in the research market is because computer science graduates take their opinions with them into the commercial (and personal) market. Students who spend four years using SunOS would prefer to work somewhere that uses Suns, and companies that are started by Brown grads are likely to buy Suns (such as Electronic Book Technologies). They also of course influence others in the community. Furthermore, as the unix market grows to include computers at home, students are more likely to buy from whatever vendor they got used to at school. Speaking of paranoid managers, you're a prime example of what these non-compete agreements do. The damage has already been done, before my post was ever conceived. I still have a copy of a post you made last September, when you made all the *BSD folks drool. Even today, if you released this code it would shake the entire free intel unix community. Some day, when I have a few months to spare, I plan on repeating some of the work you did. > From terry@cs.weber.edu Wed Sep 22 02:25:23 1993 > Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.misc > [...] > > In article <CDn8xn.33q@sztaki.hu> pink@fsz.bme.hu writes: > >I remember somebody (Terry Lambert?) mentioned a couple of months ago that > >he has SCO emulation running, but can't release the code, cause it has > >some not public stuff in it. Would be great!!! (correct me if i'm wrong) > > Before I get deluged with mail, a preemptive strike (sorry if this is terse, > but I have been hit up a lot on these things): > > o Yes, I can run SCO Xenix 286 binaries (some ioctl()'s don't work). > o Yes, I can run SCO Xenix 386 binaries. > o Yes, I can run SCO UNIX, ISC UNIX, Microport, Cubix, and Altos > binaries for SVR3 derivitive UNIX. > o Yes, I can run *statically linked* SVR4 binaries. > o Yes, I can run *statically linked* Linux binaries. > o Yes, I have a real streams (some problems with priority banding) that > can run the Lachman TCP/IP code and the sample streams code in the > SVR4 docs. > o Yes, I have real shared libraries not derived from Sun code. > o Yes, I have a user space threads implementation which is source > compatable with Sun's LWP. > o Yes, my console is Unicode and can handle Japanese, Russian, Korean, > etc. with only data set changes. > o Yes, my filesystem is localizable so that you can rename well known > files like "/etc" or "/etc/passwd" to the non-English equivalents > and programs like "passwd" can still find them. > o Yes, my VM has been fixed to eliminate ETXTBSY and all the failure > cases therein (related to NFS, etc). > o Yes, I have a stackable attributed filesystem with data compression > built in on a per file block basis. > o Yes, I have install disks that don't care about translated drive > geometries and *just work* with DOS. > o Yes, I have a DOS FS that can mount extended partitions and doesn't > need changes to the disklabel to find DOS (it reads the partition > table). > o Yes, my serial ports work correctly with flow control. > > NO, I CAN NOT GIVE OUT CODE WITHOUT MY EMPLOYERS PERMISSION. > NO, MY EMPLOYER WOULD NOT LOOK KINDLY ON PEOPLE LOBBYING FOR PERMISSION. > NO, I DON'T KNOW WHEN OR IF PERMISSION WILL BE FORTHCOMING. > NO, I DON'T WANT A BUNCH OF MAIL ASKING ME TO "JUST SNEAK A COPY". > NO, YOU DON'T FIND THIS AS FRUSTRATING AS I DO. Mark -- -------------------------------------------------------------------- Email: Mark_Weaver@brown.edu | Brown University PGP Key: finger mhw@cs.brown.edu | Dept of Computer Science