Splinter Unix?

[Dave Decot]

Obviously, as an HP employee, I may be biased.  However, I would like
to clear up what I see as some erroneous assumptions about the
Open Software Foundation.  These are my opinions, not necessarily HP's.

> It should be obvious what their real motives are.  It must grate to
> have to pay AT&T royalties.

This is certainly one of the motives, but is not nearly the primary one.

> We sure don't need a DIFFERENT system interface.  A true UNIX clone
> would be okay (although it would lag in picking up new developments),
> except I doubt they will produce one.

OSF declares itself to be a standards selection and implementation
consortium, not a standards generating body.  Almost of the standards
OSF embraces are non-proprietary ones such as POSIX, X/Open, NBS POSIX FIPS
and the rest of NBS's Applications Portability Profile, X-windows,
and ANSI C.

> >What impact will this have on the Posix effort?  On development of portable
> >code?
>
> It has no impact at all on 1003.1 or the NBS FIPS, which are quite close
> to being officially approved.  There could be a small effect on other
> 1003 subgroups eventually, although 1003.2 is probably far enough along
> to be relatively unperturbed.

It has a positive impact on the use of all these, since these companies
are now strengthening their support of these open standards, and as such
de-emphaiszing their dependence on proprietary defacto standards such as
System V.  The OSF enables members to respond faster to these developments,
and in a more consistent manner throughout the industry.

> The effect on portable code is this:
...
> 	It is a rare application that does not need more support from
> 	the system environment than is covered by (almost-)existing
> 	POSIX standards.  If the AIX system ends up looking entirely
> 	unlike AT&T's UNIX system outside the domain specified by
> 	POSIX, then portable applications will be forced to deal with
> 	logically unnecessary variations among systems, largely
> 	defeating the purpose of standards and imposing an economic
> 	burden on software development.  (Note that this can also be
> 	construed as a complaint about what is actually accomplished
> 	by POSIX as it turned out.)

Note that X/Open's Portability Guide started with SVID functionality and
covers a much larger range of functionality than SVID or POSIX, that
NBS APP covers some different areas than X/Open, and that OSF has plans
to expand their set of included standards further.

> I get pissed off at companies that prefer to resort to marketing and
> legal strategies rather than responding technically.

Who is not responding technically?  What's wrong with marketing and legal
strategies? What is "Application Binary Interface"?  A marketing strategy.
Marketing consists of assessing customer needs and finding ways to meet them.
Unfounded marketing hype is deplorable, but I've not seen any examples
of that with regard to OSF.

Also, I believe it is unfair to complain that OSF has not "responded
technically" when it's two days old.  On what basis have you decided that
it will not generate excellent techincal solutions?

> If they're really going to develop an alternative operating system instead
> of adding value to an established standard one, it should be SIGNIFICANTLY
> BETTER than UNIX, not just a small incompatible tweak, or else they're
> wasting everyone's time.

What leads you to believe that "just a small incompatible tweak" would be
what OSF will be developing?

Dave Decot
Hewlett-Packard Company