UNIX vs VMS (or here we go again....)

[Martin Fouts]

     I also have mixed VMS/Unix vaxes, and additionally have Unix on
multiple machines other than my vaxes.  Every complaint you level
against VMS is true for Unix.

     *roff as a word processor, Why not TeX?   How about databases?
if you don't have 4bsd, where do you get your network support?  And if
you think DECUS is fun for software, how about net.sources (provided
you have a version of uucp/readnews that work together?)

     But UNIX is giving me a different headache.  I now have three
kinds of computers running five kinds of Unix.  Programs from Version X
won't run under Version Y, operator procedures are radically different,
and the user interface varies.

     The REAL point I would like to make isn't that VMS is superior to
UNIX in any sense.  (For each place where VMS is better, some version
of UNIX is better somewhere else, and otherwise. . .)

     The REAL point is that a system which was integrated and well
supported would allow more people to do more productive work than a
system full of odd variants, half thought out ideas, and large
quantities of Bugs.

     So why can't we herd UNIX off in that direction?

Marty

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