Splinter Unix?

[David H. Wolfskill]

In article <21621 at labrea.STANFORD.EDU> karish at denali.stanford.edu (Chuck Karish) writes:
>In article <8161 at dhw68k.cts.com> I wrote:
>>....  Indeed: in spite of the (fairly) recent announcement from IBM to
>>the effect that AIX was to be the standard IBM port of UNIX, there is a
>>product .... called "IBM/4.3" that is (you guessed it) a port of 4.3BSD.

>The ports of 4.2 and 4.3 to RTs are essentially vanilla Berkeley
>UNIX, not IBM products.  They were distributed to encourage
>development for the RT platform, and to get IBM involved in UNIX
>research in the universities.  IBM donated the machines (RTs)
>for that research.

CAVEAT:  I neither speak nor write on behalf of either SHARE, Inc. or
my employer (who shall remain nameless, but who is a member of SHARE).
Of course, I also do neither on behalf of IBM.

Well, I found out about IBM/4.3 at a recent session of a meeting of
SHARE.  (SHARE is a group of users of IBM equipment; as of the time of
that meeting, membership in SHARE was limited to firms that were
running either VM, OS/VS1, or MVS (either MVS/370 or MVS/XA) on an IBM
machine of 370 architecture.  That restriction has just recently been
relaxed to include the "high-end" model(s?) of the s/38, running
whatever it runs, as well.)

IBM has various classifications for the software packages that it makes
available to its customers, under various terms.  Rather than launch
into a discussion about them, suffice it to say that IBM expects money
in return for making IBM/4.3 available to a customer; based on that
(admittedly loose) interpretation, I would call it a "product."  I would
not claim that IBM developed IBM/4.3 "from scratch," certainly; in that
sense, it is not something that is an IBM invention.  Nevertheless,
there was indeed a presentation about it from an "IBMer" to a group of
users of IBM equipment.

>I suspect that 4.2A and IBM/4.3 were not released to the world outside
>the universities specifically to AVOID presenting two incompatible
>products to their customers.

That may well be a contributing factor; I still perceive (what seems to
me to be) an appearance of duplicity in IBM's actions.

>Is it any less valid for IBM to maintain a distinct internal version
>of UNIX than it is for AT&T to use Version 9 while they distribute
>System V?

Does AT&T make "Version 9" available to academic institutions -- for a
fee?  I was not aware of such a program, and it is from that perspective
that I recorded my thoughts and observations.

I may, of course, be wrong; after all, I am human....

david
-- 
David H. Wolfskill
uucp: ...{trwrb,hplabs}!felix!dhw68k!david	InterNet: david at dhw68k.cts.com