DEC is dishonest - ULTRIX is not UNIX

[John Owens]

In article <661 at scc.UUCP>, steiny at scc.UUCP (Don Steiny) writes:
> 	They claim that ULTRIX is 4.2BSD, or at least 4.2BSD
> compatible.   They tell their customers that and they
> tell their sales people that.
> 
>	[ flames about changes in the accounting structures ]
>
> 	I have had considerable experience now with various ports
> and ULTRIX is without a doubt the worst.   It is not even close
> to UNIX.  I have never heard anything from any DEC person but 
> how terrible UNIX is.  It looks like they are trying to prove their
> point by passing off a junk operating system as UNIX and then
> saying "see we told you so."
> 
> scc!steiny

You've got to be kidding.  (But obviously you're not.)  First, you
have to understand that the accounting structures have traditionally
been very neglected in UNIX.  So much so, that they really aren't very
useful in 4.2BSD.  A second of CPU time is much too granular on a VAX
to mean very much.  DEC, in adapting 4.2BSD plus various other
Berkeley improvements into Ultrix, wanted to make a reliable
commercial product.  This included such *enhancements* as porting a
"good" VMS Fortran compiler, and improving the accounting structure a
great deal.  (I think some of the accounting work was done for 4.3BSD,
but I'm not sure.)  I think that's worth breaking one in a thousand
programs that use the accounting structure.  In any case, I would
hardly think an incompatibility like that would make it "not even
close to UNIX."  What about 4.2 vs. SysV?  v7?  SysVr1 vs SysVr2 vs
SysVr2v2 vs SysVr3?  If all those are UNIX, certainly Ultrix is!

I hope Fred Avolio responds to all this....

	John Owens @ General Electric Company	(+1 804 978 5726)
	edison!jso%virginia at CSNet-Relay.ARPA		[old arpa]
	edison!jso at virginia.EDU				[w/ nameservers]
	jso at edison.UUCP					[w/ uucp domains]
	{cbosgd allegra ncsu xanth}!uvacs!edison!jso	[roll your own]