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

[Paul Vixie]

Karl Kleinpaste climbs momentarily onto a soapbox...
>
>I'm really, really tired of hearing all the OSF sponsors moaning that
>"AT&T & Sun's relationship will put all the other companies at a
>disadvantage for N months after release of SysVRel(M+1) while we port
>it to our machines."
>
>Question: So what else is new?  When was the last time that AT&T
>involved its competitors heavily in a new release of SysV?  
>
>All other companies, including Sun, have been playing catch-up to
>AT&T's releases since Day One.  This is nothing new.  
>[...] Nothing in the AT&T/Sun plan changes that.

AT&T was never likely to sell enough iron to be a competitor when it was
the only entity working on new releases.  Teamed up with Sun, the picture
changes a lot.

With their combined name recognition and technical talents, with Sun's
marketing talents and AT&T's dollars, they make a fearsome pair.  Maybe
more fearsome than they realized :-/.

I'm just glad there's going to be competition.  Bright as he is, I don't
want to be stuck with Joy et al's vision of what needs to exist... I'd
rather see both sides sweat a bit, try to out-do eachother.  That was
the great strength of AT&T's non-product for a long time: everybody did
their own thing.  I'm very glad that AT&T couldn't sell the thing back
when BSD was being born -- we'd all still be using V7's IPC.

Which is not to say at all that I think every strain should survive and
that we should all #ifdef our code 'til we die.  New strains ought to
have a chance, though, and if one company owns the design, that doesn't
happen.

We needed a balance, a struggle, and now we've got one.  I hope neither
side capitulates or screws up.

I shouldn't need to say this, but: I'm not speaking for DEC.
-- 
Paul Vixie
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