*BSD News Article 65925


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From: rhys@vortex.cc.missouri.edu (Justin "Rhys Thuryn" McNutt)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.os.linux.advocacy
Subject: Re: Historic Opportunity facing Free Unix (was Re: The Lai/Baker paper, benchmarks, and the world of free UNIX)
Followup-To: comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.os.linux.advocacy
Date: 17 Apr 1996 22:51:51 GMT
Organization: University of Missouri - Columbia
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Ray Auchterlounie (rda@kythera.demon.co.uk) wrote:

: It's not difficult, for example, to envisage some applications only
: being available for Linux-FT-Posix-Certified and others only for
: Caldera. The different distributions may not always run on the same
: hardware. There's not much difference between:

:     "Product X available for unix" (requires Sparc running Solaris)
:     "Product Y available for unix" (IBM AIX or HP-UX only)
: and
:     "Product X for Linux" (Caldera version bar only)  
:     "Product Y for Linux" (FT-posix release foo required) 

: If this happens we've gone full circle back to a maze of different
: unixes all based on Linux but all subtly different/incompatible and
: all claiming to be the "standard".

: The opportunity will then be well and truly missed. :(

This isn't quite valid.  While I see your point, and agree that it would be 
very well to avoid such a situation, in your example above, Solaris and AIX are 
two completely different Unices, while Caldera's Linux and FT-POSIX are still 
pretty much the same Linux underneath.

--------
If you can lead it to water and force it to drink, it isn't a horse.

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