Splinter Unix?

[H. L. Rogers]

In article <2949 at ihlpe.ATT.COM> res at ihlpe.ATT.COM (Rich Strebendt, AT&T-DSG @ Indian Hill West) writes:
>
>As an employee of the Data Systems Group of AT&T I must admit a bit of
>bias on this topic.  The following comments are my own personal opinion

I am probably biased also, since my employer was one of the Hamilton group,
but I like to think I keep an open mind on this topic.

>I think it is clear that DEC and IBM are not interested in establishing
>a new standard.  Rather, what they would like to do is destroy UNIX as
>a viable competitor to their own proprietary products.

It is not that clear.  The other OSF partners are not small potatoes.
They *will* have a say in the outcome.

What response would you expect from a group of vendors who have come to
depend upon Unix for a good part of their business?  V. Cassoni
instilled no confidence that Unix would remain open as a result of the
Sun/AT&T alliance, and Kavner don't know what going on yet.  A wise sage
coined the phrase "Actions speak louder than words."  AT&T/Sun have
spoken with their actions; IBM/DEC/HP/et al have spoken with theirs.
Only time will give us the true winner.  If, during that time, the
proprietary OS software increases its lifetime, so what?  There will
be plenty of business for the benefactors of the winning open system:
applications developers and customers, and there will also be plenty
of business for the proprietary stuff.  I don't think the open systems
companies fear the proprietary stuff.  Both co-exist at many companies,
and both have their own niche.
-- 

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HL Rogers    (hl.rogers at ncrcae.Columbia.NCR.COM)