^3 What ....... Dell UNIX V.4

[Greg A. Woods]

In article <2361 at sixhub.UUCP> davidsen at sixhub.UUCP (bill davidsen) writes:
> In article <1990Nov21.232102.26005 at pegasus.com> richard at pegasus.com (Richard Foulk) writes:
> | SCO has, so far, promised NOT to go with V.4 -- buzzing about in their own
> | separate reality.
> 
>   I believe they said they were not going with v.4.0, but were going to
> wait for v.4.1. That's not the same thing in the long run. I was also
> told they were going to add V.4 capabilities to SCO UNIX, and I think
> that is far out from a company which is trying to get away from Xenix
> development because it's non-standard. I've said *that* before.
>[....]
>   I think the decision to wait for a stable V.4 was a bad one, but SCO
> has a big chunk of the market and makes a lot of money, and for Joe User
> in an office trying to *run* software instead of *develop* software,
> something like Xenix make sense. It's small, fast, reliable, and supports
> lots of peripherals and software.

I suspect they just want to sell a stockpile of 3.2!  :-)

Also, v.4.1, while they may indeed be awaiting it, may not be what you
think it is.  Although the "Roadmap" from UI is careful not to mention
"dot" releases beyond 4.0, I have seen other references which seem to
indicate that the "dot" releases will be the major functionality
upgrades, such as "Enhanced Security", "Multiprocessing Plus", and
"Network Computing Plus".

On the other hand, if SCO intend to continue to port "their" features
(i.e. XENIX and SysVrIII backward compatability), and do some serious
QA, it will take some time before they have SysVr4.0 up to snuff.

(Mind you, I too believe that SysVr4.0 is probably the best ever first
release of an OS from AT&T.)

Also, I'd like to say that I believe adding r4.0 features to an older
release is a SERIOUS mistake.  I certainly won't recommend or buy such
an OS.  SCO tried this with XENIX 2.3.2.  IBM are trying with AIX.
Apple are trying with A/UX 2.0.  I feel such attempts are utterly
wasteful of resources.  If a vendor has a set of features they wish to
add to an OS, they should have them well enough defined, and understand
them well enough, that they can add them to any base release.  Either
do that, or forget about the "features" you want from the "base" OS,
and walk your own road (as IBM may actually be doing!).  I believe
customers still want the "base" OS, in addition to any features a
particular vendor may have sold them on.

It seems people who originally started out to make UNIX available and
useful for the masses get stuck in ruts and have trouble keeping up
with new releases of UNIX!
-- 
						Greg A. Woods

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