Date: Wed, 1 May 1996 09:58:15 -0600 (MDT) From: wes@intele.net To: Bill/Carolyn Pechter <pechter@shell.monmouth.com> Cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Unixware Message-ID: <199605011558.JAA08723@obie.softweyr.com> In-Reply-To: <199604290021.UAA23469@shell.monmouth.com> References: <199604281807.MAA05773@obie.softweyr.com> <199604290021.UAA23469@shell.monmouth.com>
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I wrote:
> > Everyone who wants a "single UNIX" raise your hands. Anyone? I had
> > hoped this idiot idea would die along with VMS, but I guess the
> > mindless minions of MicroSoft are still maintaining this is a
> > disadvantage of UNIX.
pechter@shell.monmouth.com replied with:
> FLAME ON! Unsubstantiated opinion follows.
>
> The point is -- it's much harder to standardize on applications in a
> Unix environment. What version of Framemaker are you running.
> Well, if you're running AIX 4.0.3 4.x. (5 just came out for AIX about a
> year after the Solaris/Sun OS one...)
>
> Why... because the releases are staged out in order to minimize the size of
> the development staff and to maximize the return on the initial development
> investment.
On the other hand, Security Toolkit/UNIX 3.1, my "baby", was released
simultaneously on 13 different* UNIX platforms, from a staff of three
software engineers. Believe me, STK/U has *a lot* more platform
dependencies than Frame. Been there, done that, got the grey hair
to show for it. It ain't easy, but really is no more difficult than
say, writing code that works with different "code pages" on DOS and
Win 3.1, full Unicode on NT, and that half-baked mess on Win95, but
everyone seems to think of that as being "reasonable." Because
MasterGates says it's reasonable, I guess.
(The 14 different UNIXes? SunOS/SPARC, SunOS/68k, Solaris/SPARC, RISC
Ultrix, VAX Ultrix, DEC UNIX AXP, HP-UX HPPA, HP-UX 68k, AIX RS/6000,
SVR4/88k, SVR3/88k, SVR3/68k, and SVR4/386.)
> Unix is harder to admin. Why. Well, the tools and commands differ between
> versions. I'm flexible. I've done SysIII, SysV Release 0, 2 and 3.
> I've done BSD 4.2, 4.3 varients, "Real-Time" Unix, SVR4, Solaris 2.3 and
> 2.4. If all I had was the "commercial vendor training" I'd spend all day on
> the phone to support. I have to study on my own. Hack at FreeBSD,
> Xenix, Coherent, Linux to try stuff that will work "generically" across
> "Unix" systems...
Well, obviously, you need "Enterprise Access Control." Too bad my
former employer screwed that product into the ground. Tivoli TME or
CA-Unicenter will go a long way towards curing your cross-platform sys
admin woes, and *still* give you many more performance options than NT
dreamed of.
You see, the really cool part here is that you have a choice. You can,
as so many do, choose to believe that there is no solution to this
problem in UNIX-land, but you'd be wrong. You can choose to not buy
anything, and do things the hard way, or you can choose to study the
market and buy the best tool for your needs. With VMS, or WinNT, you
can choose to use the (poor, IMHO) tools "given" to you by the vendor,
or not do it at all.
> Re: VMS -- at least their was ONE standard set of commands. There was
> real helpfiles. There WAS a support line with people who could rattle off
> MORE THAN THE 5 TOP reasons for a problem and they would work with you
> to resolve it. (BTW Microsoft fails on this one... try to understand
> Windows NT as shipped when you get messages like Sparrow initialization
> failed." What's a *^(&$# sparrow and why does it initialize.)
Which standard set of commands? V4, V5, or V6? DEC had a nasty habit
of breaking everything in VMS each time they did a major version
upgrade; witness the e-mail incompatibilities between VMS 3.x and 4.x,
or the backup incompatibilities between 4.x and 5.x, etc. VMS had its
good points, but from a system programming standpoint, consistency was
not one of them. All of those different layers of operating system,
each with a completely different API philosophy, could get pretty
annoying.
> The support by rote reading of prior database trouble tickets SUCKS
> big time. "But it's cheaper than hiring engineers to do that..."
Sounds like you need a better system vendor. Try Sun or SGI. Avoid
IBM like the plague they are.
> I make my living doing Unix admin and system support for AIX
> developers in-house right now. It was SunOS, HPUX, and Solaris
> before that. Xelos, RTU and MicroXelos and UniPlus (with
> Concurrent/Perkin Elmer and Masscomp HW) before that. Pyramid OS/x
> and DC/OSx and hardware before that.
>
> ...AND DEC Hardware Vax/VMS, RT11, RSX11 before that. Guess which
> one I found the most rational and logical. At least with a SINGLE
> Unix taking commercial hold on the Intel level it might push a
> standard up hill.
Been there, done that to. In addition to a wide variety of UNIX (all
mentioned above, plus SVR2/286, SVR2/68k, {386,Net,Free}BSD, Minix and
a smattering of Coherent, Concurrent (nee InterPig, er, InterData)
OS/32, Harris VOS, RT-11, RSX-11, DOS, DG RDOS and AOS, CP/M,
SuperDOS, and several embedded real-time OSs, including one I've
pretty much rewritten from scratch in the last few months.
I'd rather have choices than the "one true OS." I prefer SunOS (or,
better yet, FreeBSD!) for uniprocessor workstations, Solaris for SMP
workstations and severs, and HP-UX for database servers. All
different, because the different machines and different user roles
have different needs.
> Commercial data processing centers don't want to spend money on different
> OS's and multiple support crews. That's why NT is eating Unix's lunch
> on the desktop and why it's making major inroads into corporate servers.
> (I prefer Unix servers to NT. I prefer OS2 server to NT. I prefer Novell
> servers to NT. Why -- because I've got an irrational fear of Microsofts
> intentions in most things. They've got monopoly down better than anyone
> since Standard Oil. They've got it down much better than IBM or DEC ever
> could've dreamed of...)
> anyway ONE UNIX STANDARD is a good thing. My prediction is Unix
> will be dead or dying by 2005 (and hopefully NT won't survive for
> ever...but it scares me).
Funny, I seem to remember a lot of VMS people saying UNIX would be
dead by 1990, or 1995, or whenever. Bought any VMS machines lately?
Remember the predictions from 88/89 when OS/2 was going to kill UNIX?
Doesn't seem to have happened. Or from '94, when NT was going to
completely replace UNIX within a year? Then the UNIX vendors had
record sales in 94 and 95.
There will never be one UNIX standard, because the essence of the UNIX
marketplace is choice and differentiation. The UNIX market will not
coalesce around a single standard because that is not what the UNIX
market wants. I agree that most large corporations are looking for a
single-point solution to their application server woes, which makes
them steer away from the UNIX market. Fine -- that doesn't mean we
have to mold UNIX into the product they want; they can buy that
elsewhere.
These people can still buy MPE and OS/400, or NT, or NetWare, they
just can't get the performance they can from the UNIX market. When
they want the performance, they step into the big league, pick a
vendor who will work with them, and make the relationship work. Or
they end up as a UNIX disaster story, because they tried to implement
UNIX their way, instead of the UNIX way. Neither is right or wrong,
they're just different.
> They want DROIDS to run most corporate machines. A windows interface,
> a couple of pull downs, canned applications, a simple backup/restore
> application. They want $35k college kids (hell, they want less than
> that -- 2 year tech school wonders) to run the stuff. They're hiring
> Unix admins that I wouldn't have had as VMS operators...
Bill, you've made some good points, you've just drawn the wrong
conclusions. Just because people want to buy Windows NT is not a
sufficient argument to make UNIX into Windows NT. There are
advantages and disadvantages to doing things the UNIX way; when the
advantages outweight the disadvantages, customers will buy UNIX. When
the disadvantages rule, they will buy something else. The job of the
UNIX evangelists (i.e. Harris and Randy, see their monthly column at
http://www.sun.com/sunworldonline) is to show people that some of the
perceived disadvantages are simply not true.
--
Wes Peters | Yes I am a pirate, two hundred years too late
Softweyr | The cannons don't thunder, there's nothing to plunder
Consulting | I'm an over forty victim of fate...
wes@intele.net | Jimmy Buffett
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