Showcase - SGI please respond!

[Michael Kandall]

In article <JIM.91Mar24165704 at baroque.Stanford.EDU> jim at baroque.Stanford.EDU (James Helman) writes:

   Path: sgitokyo!sgihub!dragon!sgi!decwrl!stanford.edu!leland.Stanford.EDU!baroque.Stanford.EDU!jim
   From: jim at baroque.Stanford.EDU (James Helman)
   Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
   Date: 24 Mar 91 16:57:04 GMT
   References: <1991Mar21.201915.23361 at gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca>
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>   I too am bothered by the software unbundling that is sweeping (?) the
>   industry.  I'm glad that SGI will include showcase in the IRIX 4.0
>   distribution.  I wish they would do the same for things such as DWB
>   (Documenter's Workbench).  There are very many IRISes out there that

This is not what unbundling means.  Unbundling is when a vendor
takes some software which was initially all together (one bundle)
and breaks it into several offerings.  For example, some vendors
sell their OS and development systems separately, even though
the OS and development system were contained in the same technology
licensed from AT&T.

DWB and UNIX System V are *separate* products from AT&T and incur
separate royalties for each copy distributed (binary sublicense).
SGI has not "unbundled" DWB, they have "not bundled" it.

The question which arises is should all customers pay for DWB,
even if they don't use it.  SHould the customers who do not use
DWB foot the bill for those who do?  Maybe they should?  But maybe
they shouldn't?  What about C++?  What about incorporating
technologies with even higher royalties.  Should customers be
forced to pay royalties for products they did not really want?

I am not saying either way, but I think it is important to recognize
the business relationship that all workstation makers have with
technology suppliers, and understand that those relationships
will be reflected in their offerings to end users.

I also appreciate your point about not having a part that you
need included by default in the system.

>   have commercial and free third-party software installed, but man pages
>   are not available because there's no nroff, and the sysadmins haven't
>   installed something free like awf.  Custom software packages with
>   obscure command line options are confusing enough to new users even
>   with man pages.  Unix sans nroff is a big step backwards in user
>   friendliness.  It's just another missing feature that makes many users
>   flinch when they have to use another flavor of Unix, such as IRIX.  In
>   my experience, such "incompatibilities" are the second most common
>   reason (behind third-party software availability) that people
>   recommend other platforms.
>
>   Unbundling is also more damaging for a company like SGI than for its
>   larger competitors because many large sites, such as Stanford, have
>   group licenses for unbundled products from biggies like Sun, but not
>   from SGI.
>
>   Jim Helman
>   Department of Applied Physics			Durand 012
>   Stanford University				FAX: (415) 725-3377
>   (jim at KAOS.stanford.edu) 			Work: (415) 723-9127

These opinions are my own and do not necessarily reflect
those of SGI or SGI management.