UNIX Futures

[Jim Rees]

    Let's not lose perspective by emphasizing differences between 4 BSD
    and System V.  The two UNIX variants are at least 95% similar.

I don't buy it.  One of our marketing guys actually counted up the number
of programs, library calls, and system calls that are identical in both
variants of unix, how many have the same name but do different things (setpgrp,
for example), and how many exist in only one variant.  I don't remember
the exact percentage of those things that are the same in both variants,
but it was nowhere near 95%.  The most commonly used command on many unix
machines is 'ls', and look at how different that is.

When was the last time you saw a C program over 500 lines long that would
compile and run under both variants with no changes or conditional code?

The differences are big enough to be a pain in the neck.  I would sure like
to see them resolved.