Microport, FSF, etc.

[Jeffrey Kegler]

In article <27949 at cci632.UUCP> tvf at ccird7.UUCP (Tom Frauenhofer) writes:
>... but as time goes buy I'm more convinced us buying
>Microport is not a good idea (see previous postings for the why's).

Let me repeat some of the why's.  Those of us reading this news group are
hackers to one degree or another.  In buying Uport we would waste a lot of
time dealing with MBA's who, not knowing the business, would run a lot of dumb
bluffs on us, and probably screw up the deal.  Even if it works we are stuck
with the AT&T license.

Much better to spend your time and money with GNU and the FSF.  The tendency
of something free to get around is almost irresistible.  UNIX when it started
was free.  MS/DOS was essentially free since it got bundled into the machine
(the 386 I am writing this one comes with MS/DOS whether I use it--I don't--
or not, so the marginal cost to me == marginal utility == zero).

And everything written based on GNU is "marked" with the GNU "freeright".  How
often have you seen a wonderful package tainted by one piece of proprietary
something it was written on, for or with.  GNU will use the same mechanism to
make large amounts of other stuff free.  (Computer Maker wants to move metal,
likes free OS, and is hooked.)

This Uport business is an excellent example of how wasteful proprietary OS'es
are.  Only Uport staff could look at the code.  But they were overworked, so
fixes and improvements were slow.  Meanwhile, customers who could have done the
fixes or improvements were banned from seeing the code.  This stifles cash
flow and makes Uport staffing tight.  Mind you, I have nothing against greed
so long as it does not interfere with business.

You 286 users have three choices:  MINIX, which is not free but pretty close,
SCO, which is far from free but well-supported, and upgrading to 386's which
is what I just did.  I think if you look at the price difference versus the
time and trouble it takes to run UNIX on a 286, you may find the switch
justified.  Even those who do not (I was a college student once, too) are
going eventually see 386 prices come so close to 286 prices, that you too will
upgrade.  So the 286 UNIX market is a disappearing entity.
not sure it is worth arguing
-- 

Jeffrey Kegler, President, Algorists,
jeffrey at algor2.UU.NET or uunet!algor2!jeffrey
1762 Wainwright DR, Reston VA 22090