DEC is no worse than anyone else - Apology

[Don Steiny]

	I am sorry that I got mad at ULTRIX.   I lost a $75,000.00
contract because my software, which allegedly worked or 4.2 (it does)
did not work on ULTRIX.   The reason it did not work is because
the acct data structure had several fields that were "comp_t"
on UNIX were "float" on ULTRIX.   I have been informed that
from one version of ULTRIX to the next it also changes.     End 
users believe what DEC says.   WE believed DEC, and we were naive
enough to believe that ULTRIX was 4.2.   Now I am going to have
to eat rice for a while. 

	ULTRIX is no worse than anyone else.   HP has a very good
UNIX that is "system V compatible" that has the 4.2 file system.
Any system level program that accesses the file system needs to know
that.  (At least the man page reflects the change, though).

	"Compatible" is a marketing term, not an engineering term.
I am sure there are many nice people at DEC (I have certainly met
many) that are really trying to do a good job.  I am sure that
when they read what the marketing folks are saying they cringe.

	It is especially tought here on the West Coast because DEC
is an East Coast company and it is not easy to get in touch with
the right people, where it is easy to get in touch with people
from Sun, Pyramid, and so on.


-- 
scc!steiny
Don Steiny @ Don Steiny Software 
109 Torrey Pine Terrace
Santa Cruz, Calif. 95060
(408) 425-0382