OS costs

[Joe Smith]

Dick Dunn:
> ...  Instead, the development is nearly continuous, which means
> current sales have to support a full-time development staff as well
> as the usual maintenance, support, marketing, sales...  Now, figure
> that developers cost you $1.5-2 M per dozen per year...and trust me,
> you need several dozen developers these days.

While I don't doubt for a minute that this is currently true, doesn't
this strike anyone else as completely outrageous?  I mean, think about
how many developers are employed by 386-Unix vendors (and AT&T!), and
compare it to the number of developers required to support DOS*.  It
must be at least 10:1, maybe even 100:1.

Why does Unix require such huge development-support costs?  If Unix is
ever going to 'mature' as a product, it's got to shed the need for
intensive system hacking, and the needless duplication of effort on
the part of vendors (how many developers are working on competing
sysadmin and installation schemes?).

*) If you don't like the comparison to DOS, choose any other alternative,
PC-based OS (esp. OS/2).  I don't think the number will change that much.

<Joe
--
 Joe Smith
 University of Pennsylvania                    jes at mbio.med.upenn.edu
 Dept. of Biochemistry and Biophysics          (215) 898-8348
 Philadelphia, PA 19104-6059