what to do with 386? [was Re: I will not honor comp.unix.sco]

Chip Rosenthal chip at chinacat.Unicom.COM
Sun May 27 06:33:41 AEST 1990


[ followups redirected to news.groups ]

tim at ohday.sybase.com (Tim Wood) writes:
>chip at chinacat.Unicom.COM (Chip Rosenthal) writes:
>>[I like the proposed comp.unix.i386 -> comp.unix.sysv386 renaming.]
>Hmm, but these (specifically .sysv386) would seem to exclude non-SysV
>UNIX (interface) alternatives for 386s, like Mach.

Indeed it would, and that's why I like it.  Not that I want to slight
Mach or BSD, but splitting them out makes sense.

First, the need exists for a home for SysV/386 discussions.  While Mach/386
and BSD/386 will be important, the traffic isn't there now to justify
groups for them.  I believe newsgroups should be created to satisfy an
existing demand, and not try to second guess where we will be six months
from now.  As soon as the need exists, let's get them created.

Second, I don't think there will be a lot of synergy achieved by putting
all of the 386 unices into one group.  For example, the XENIX/SysV split
makes sense.  I think breaking out Mach and BSD also makes sense.

Thirdly, we've just seen the tip of the iceberg.  SysV/386 is going to
boom.  comp.unix.i386 is barely at a managable level now, and SysV/386
is still in its infancy.  At some point I expect it will get so large we
will want ways to better organize the discussion.  If Mach and BSD are
lumped in with SysV/386, dollars to doughnuts the first thing proposed
would be to split the non-SysV stuff out.

Finally, I would expect the Mach and BSD users would prefer to be elsewhere.
Just ask the XENIX/68K users what they think of comp.unix.xenix these
days.

I know that the justification behind my first and third points appears to
be in conflict.  First I'm saying let's only deal with demonstrated need,
and later I'm saying let's plan for the future.  The difference is that
the statement "SysV/386 is going to grow, and news traffic will as well"
seems to be an almost assured event.  However, I can't sit here and with
the same confidence say what will happen to Mach and BSD in the user
community, and how we can best address their users.

I would suggest posting your Mach/386 and BSD/386 messages to i386/sysv386
for the time being.  Lots of inappropriate postings in the wrong place
is the best way to get a newsgroup created :-)

-- 
Chip Rosenthal                            |  You aren't some icon carved out
chip at chinacat.Unicom.COM                  |  of soap, sent down here to clean
Unicom Systems Development, 512-482-8260  |  up my reputation.  -John Hiatt



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