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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!news.eng.convex.com!newshost.convex.com!newsgate.duke.edu!news-feed-1.peachnet.edu!paperboy.wellfleet.com!news3.near.net!news-server.moat.platsol.com!news From: Harold Lockhart <hal@platsol.com> Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.soft-sys.dce Subject: Re: DCE secure core and DFS for BSDi? Date: Wed, 31 Jul 1996 11:52:25 -0700 Organization: Platinum Solutions Inc. Lines: 56 Message-ID: <31FFAB69.738E@platsol.com> References: <4rumio$qhc@news.more.net> <glvITFG00iWZI8aH5x@andrew.cmu.edu> <DuqpA8.29n@wiz.com> <w5w687dysyo.fsf@mantis.austin.ibm.com> <4tctvg$fg1@paperboy.osf.org> Reply-To: hal@platsol.com NNTP-Posting-Host: hal_pc.bos.platsol.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0b4 (Win16; I) Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:4433 comp.soft-sys.dce:3584 Rich Salz wrote: > > In <w5w687dysyo.fsf@mantis.austin.ibm.com> Chris Cowan <cc@mantis.austin.ibm.com> writes: > >There is nothing that would prevent someone from writing a > >"work-alike" based on the OSF RFCs, is there? > > Primarily the AES volumes, not the RFC's. Nope. The only thing getting > in the way is that it is almost impossible to write the specs correctly > enough, and with enough detail, so that it is practical to do this. But > it's always been OSf's stated policy that doing this is a goal. > > >I have always harbored the hope that someone would do this. > > Me too. > /r$ Just for the record, it is my understanding that Tandem re-engineered CDS (or perhaps just NSI) using their own database engine. But considering re-engineering the whole thing, unless someone did it and then made the code available for free (as was done initially with UNIX and TCP/IP) what would be the advantage? Everyone complains about how long it takes for DCE to come out. A separately implemented version would trail by a year or more. (This is being optimistic, since the AES has not been updated for 1.1 and 1.2 has now been shipped to vendors.) I understand the politics of the "single spec, multiple implementations" ideal, but does it really make sense for infrastructure? Building robust distributed systems is so hard, that I for one would sacrifice almost anything for being able to count on rigorous interoperability. When I am looking for bugs, I don't want to have to consider the idl compiler, etc. (Yes, I know the idl compiler has bugs, this follows from Lockhart's assertion, but they are the same everywhere.) In fact, my main complaint with the "one stop shopping" approach is that paradoxically, a single dominant vendor (IBM in the old days, Microsoft now), for a variety of reasons, does not work hard enough at interoperability even among their own products. I assert that there is better interoperablity today among DCE versions from five different vendors than between, say five Microsoft applications or five 1980 vintage SNA products. Less anyone misunderstand, I fully endorse the current policy of allowing any product that passes the conformance tests to be labeled "DCE" regardless of whether a license is purchased from OSF. I joined many others in urging the previous policy be changed back in '92. However, I see see bundled runtimes everywhere as a far more important priority than multiple implementations. Now if the Open Group could figure out an economically justifiable way to put the whole thing in the public domain... Hal ================================================================= Harold W. Lockhart Jr. Platinum Solutions Inc. Chief Technical Architect 8 New England Executive Park Email: hal@platsol.com Burlington, MA 01803 USA Voice: (617)229-4980 X1202 Fax: (617)229-2969 =================================================================