Open Software Foundation

[Carl S. Gutekunst]

>>the unbundling of Pascal and FORTRAN was in no way prompted by any action
>>on the part of AT&T.  AT&T doesn't run Sun....
>
>Yet, this "unbundling" of UNIX software did start with ATT. Why has Sun 
>continued it?

Pyramid has been unbundling lots of stuff since day 1, including ethernet for
pity's sake. I don't see anyone accusing us of being manipulated by AT&T. :-)
(Pyramid doesn't even ship AT&T's compilers; it developed its own.) 

Heerz the facts:

- Software isn't free. There are costs to develop, maintain, support, write
  and print documentation, and train staff. If it's on the release tape, you
  are paying for it. If it's bundled, you just don't see the cost. Languages
  are particularly expensive.

- The vast majority of Pyramid's customers -- probably Sun's too -- don't want
  Fortran or Pascal. Why should they pay for something they don't want?

- This is a competative market. Vendors regularly go up for bids where the
  lowest price wins. Unbundling allows a vendor to remove software that is not
  needed for the bid, thus reducing their quoted price.

I think too many readers/posters on USENET have gotten their exposure to UNIX
in universities, and somehow concluded that the software is essentially free.
If all you want to do is roll the 4.3BSD tapes onto your VAX, go for it, and
have fun. But if you want to sell stable, high-performance systems to users
who still have trouble with the RETURN key, then you need to do a lot more.
That involves costs that not only make unbundling justifiable, but essential. 

The real irony -- makes me sick, actually -- is to think how much trauma it
has caused some vendors (including Sun and Pyramid), as they wrestled with
themselves over what should be unbundled, what should not, and how to package
it. None of us actually *like* the idea; we're all UNIX hackers, too. But the
marketplace necessitates such things.

I do think AT&T has gone to ludicrous extremes in its unbundling frenzy. But
don't drag Sun into it by insinuation.

<csg>