O'pain Software Foundation: (2) Why is it better than AT&T?

[Guy Harris]

> 	Of course, in the process they eliminated ABI's greatest
> 	attraction, that of being able to provide shrink-wrapped software
> 	for Unix.

While a single ABI would mean you could provide shrink-wrapped software "for
UNIX", as opposed to providing it for "UNIX on the '386" or "UNIX on the 68K"
or "UNIX on the MIPS" or..., that's not its "greatest attraction" all by
itself.  It might be *nicer* for application vendors if there were only one
processor they had to port to - you'd have to ask them that - but it's not
at all clear that the difference between "one procesor" and "more than one
processor" is the difference between shrink-wrapped software and no
shrink-wrapped software.  (The people working on the 68K binary standard, for
example, do not appear to be dropping their efforts simply because a '386
binary standard may emerge; in fact, their efforts may have been *spurred* by
the relative uniformity of the '386 UNIX world.)

>       (Now, AT&T and probably Sun will deny that a SPARC-only
> 	ABI was ever their intention, but if you believe that, I too have
> 	a bridge to sell you.)

Well, I believe it, but then I have the disadvantage of working at Sun and
being too close to the facts; if you're coming from the outside, you can
believe or disbelieve all sorts of things without having the facts get in the
way.  Or, maybe, there was some Secret Illuminati Plot that they didn't tell us
grunts about, but I tend to doubt that.

Both AT&T and Sun have '386 machines, for example.  There has certainly been
motion towards establishing an ABI for the '386; if ABIs for a particular
processor truly cause more versions of software to appear for machines using
that processor, an ABI for the '386 would be a Good Thing both for AT&T and
Sun, as well as for other '386 machine vendors.  The same can be said for a 68K
binary standard (except that AT&T no longer sells 68K machines, unless they
still have some 7300's they're flogging).

> 5) Licensing
> 
> 	(e.g., DWB, man pages--did you know that the SVR3 license does
> 	not allow you to ship man pages?)

Since you don't *get* machine-readable man pages with the S5R3 tape - the
machine-readable documentation is a separate product - this is not surprising.
I personally have some qualms with that particular bit of unbundling, but
that's a different matter.