Rumours about "new" U*IX ? (Warning Long

Sun Jan 13 02:29:02 AEST 1991

In article <7177.278f2835 at abo.fi> hege at abo.fi writes:
>A few months ago there was an ad in misc.jobs.offered (I think) where
>Digital looked for people to develop a U*IX that was supposed to be
>"The U*IX of the 90's". In Digital Review (was it December 10, 1990?)
>the editor in chief rumoured something about U*IX/OSF-version from
>DEC within 6 months. Does anybody have any information about this?

This is the announcement I received from DEC.  This seems general knowledge,
so I am passing it on.

regards,
fletcher

Received: by decpa.pa.dec.com; id AA04967; Thu, 27 Dec 90 09:24:35 -0800
Date: Thu, 27 Dec 90 09:24:39 PST
Subject: OSF Development Kit

ANNOUNCING OSF/1 ADVANCED DEVELOPMENT KIT 

    ===================================================================

    o  Digital is the first OSF member to ship OSF/1

    o  Kit offers support for the DECstation 3100 and 2100

    o  Early binary version of OSF/1 to be available Q3/Q4 FY91

    ===================================================================

PRODUCT DESCRIPTION

Digital reinforced its commitment to OSF technology by announcing in October 
that it would ship the OSF/1 Advanced Development Kit for the DECstation 
3100 and 2100 in Q1CY91.  Digital will be the first OSF member to ship a 
version of OSF/1.

We are providing this Kit in response to customer and ISV requests for early 
access to OSF/1 technology.  The kit is a preview of future versions of 
ULTRIX, which will be based on OSF/1 technology.  The goals of the Advanced 
Development Kit are to provide market impact and underline Digital's 
leadership in delivering OSF technology.  The kit can be used to attract new 
customers and ISVs by capitilizing on the growing acceptance of OSF/1 in the 
UNIX marketplace, and to provide a leading edge development platform for 
early evaluation purposes.

The kit is a binary version of "pure" OSF/1 as shipped by OSF, and will 
include the GNU C compiler and development tools, which are included on the 
OSF/1 tape.  With the exception of an installation procedure, there will be 
no Digital enhancements to OSF/1 in the Advanced Development Kit.

Customers who order the OSF/1 Advanced Development Kit from Digital should 
be innovators who want to begin investigating the OSF Application 
Programming Interface (API).  Typically, these innovators are in academic 
and research institutions, software houses (such as CSOs and ISVs), and 
strategic accounts that have endorsed our ULTRIX/OSF strategy and want to 
begin evaluating the technology.   Customers will use this kit for advance 
development and evaluation purposes only: it is not a deployment platform 
for applications, and is not an end-user system. 

FEATURES

The OSF/1 Advanced Development Kit includes an advanced kernel based on Mach 
technology.  Innovative kernel functions include an advanced virtual memory 
management system, secure interprocess communications, loadable kernel 
modules, and thread scheduling.

Compatibility with key industry specifications (like POSIX 1003.1, FIPS 
151-1 and the XPG 3 base level) is included for application portability.  In 
addition, the OSF/1 Advanced Development Kit includes compatibility with 
other UNIX environments including the Berkeley BSD 4.3 Operating System and 
the System V Interface Definition (SVID) Issue 2 base and kernel extensions, 

System V accounting features and a SVR3.2 compatible STREAMS framework.  It 
is not a goal of the Advanced Development kit to provide binary 
compatibility with ULTRIX, although a number of applications will run 
without modification.   When an OSF-based version of ULTRIX is delivered, 
programs developed with the Advanced Development Kit should only require a 
recompile.  Binary compatibility with the current ULTRIX release is a goal 
for the merged ULTRIX-OSF offering.

The file system architecture included with the Advanced Development Kit is 
based on the Berkeley 4.4 Virtual File System (VFS) and includes the 
following file systems:

o  Berkeley 4.3 Tahoe Fast file system
o  NFS-compatible distributed file system
o  System V file system
o  XENIX file system

In addition, the OSF/1 Advanced Development Kit provides logical volume 
management and disk mirroring.  Logical volume management allows file 
systems to span multiple physical disks.  Disk mirroring helps protect 
against data loss due to media failure.

Networking features include the Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP), the BSD 
socket interface, a System V-compatible STREAMS framework, and the X/Open 
Transport Interface (XTI).  

The programming environment included with the OSF/1 Advanced Development Kit 
includes language tools based on the Free Software Foundation's GNU C 
compiler and debugger.  Strict adherence to the ANSI standard for C should 
ensure portability to future releases of ULTRIX and Digital C compilers.  In 
addition, OSF/1 supports position-independent shared libraries, callable 
program loading, and the standard UNIX exec facility.

The OSF/1 Advanced Development Kit includes support for internationalization 
in conformance with the Native Language System (NLS) in the XPG3 
specification.  This support includes eight-bit clean commands, collating 
sequences, character classification functions, messages catalogs, date and 
time formats, monetary formats and numeric conventions.  

Although the OSF/1 operating system is capable of providing security 
features at the B1 level, configuration is available only at compile time.  
For this reason, the OSF/1 Advanced Development Kit will offer only those 
security features common to all UNIX operating systems, including login 
controls and discretionary access protection.  Mandatory access controls, 
labeling, auditing, access control lists, and discrete privileges will not 
be provided in binary form with this kit.

WHAT ARE OTHER VENDORS DOING WITH OSF/1?

OSF/1 is initially available from the Open Software Foundation for three 
OSF-supported reference implementations:  Intel 302 (80386-based), Digital's  
DECstation 3100, and the Encore Multimax multiprocessor system (National 
Semiconductor-based).  Also included on the OSF/1 distribution tape are 
three vendor-contributed implementations:  HP/Apollo DN2500, Intergraph 
6000, and an Intel 860-based system.  OSF distributes OSF/1 in source code 
format.  This distribution mechanism requires an AT&T source code license 
and is therefore cost prohibitive for many small software developers.

IBM

IBM has formally announced plans to release OSF/1 on the PS/2 line some time 
in 1991.  The next machine in the IBM line to support OSF/1 will be the 
System/370.  They have announced a committment to utilize OSF/1 technology 
on the IBM RS/6000.  No timeframe has been specified.  

Hewlett-Packard

HP aggressively announced its intention to be the first company to ship 
OSF/1 code, but is targetting OSF/1 at the workstation-only market right 
now.  HP will evaluate each machine on a case-by-case basis.   HP has 
committed to delivering OSF/1 on the new PA RISC line in 1991.  The HP 400 
series will probably be supported in 1992.  HP will port OSF/1 to the Apollo 
DN series, but will not support the Apollo PRISM machines.  HP has no firm 
plans to support OSF/1 on the HP900/800 series. 

Bull

Bull recently announced an agreement with MIPS and could well announce OSF/1 
on their Intel or MIPS line.

Sun

Sun has no intention of supporting OSF technology.  Sun's strategy is to 
migrate from their current Berkeley-based SunOS to System V Release 4.

PRICING/ORDERING INFORMATION

The OSF/1 Development Kit is a media and documentation kit only.  For 
tracking and royalty purposes, a separate media kit is required for each 
CPU.  

In addition to purchasing the media, all customers will be required to sign 
a Customer Services agreement for support.  Digital will act as the 
customer's agent, consolidating bug reports and passing them on to the Open 
Software Foundation.  Digital will not distribute maintenance releases for 
the Advanced Development Kit.  Instead, Digital will include bug fixes in 
the first release of an OSF-based version of ULTRIX.

This kit will be retired on introduction of an OSF-based version of ULTRIX.

Additional pricing, licensing, and ordering information will be published as 
soon as it is finalized.  

RESOURCES

Open Software Foundation OSF/1 Information Sheet will be available early 
Q3FY91 through Northboro.  This information sheet is written by OSF, not 
Digital.

------- End of Forwarded Message

Fletcher Kittredge
Platforms and Tools Group, BBN Software Products
10 Fawcett Street,  Cambridge, MA. 02138
617-873-3465  /  fkittred at bbn.com  /  fkittred at das.harvard.edu