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

[God]

Ok, as a person in charge of system software and hardware
maintenance on 15 Vaxen (some UNIX, some VMS), a 2060 and
several other machines here is my view:

Software Maintenance

	Ok, VMS is maintained by DEC for a flat rate. But
	what does that mean:

	It hardly has a mailer, so you go out and get a
	mail system from somewhere else.

	It barely has word processing (runoff??!) so you
	go out and get word processing from somewhere else.

	Ooops, no graphics libraries...let's look through
	the ads again

	hmm, only DECNET...well that's ok if all I do is
	talk to myself or other VMS vaxes (support across
	other DEC OS's is poor) but maybe I better do something
	more generic....get another vendor
	(by the way, dec's support when DECNET breaks
	is poor at best)

	etc, etc...(hey, let's put up all these neat, free
	DECUS programs...maybe then we'll have software...)

THEN........they distribute a new version (3.701823) which
breaks all your software.

	Sooooo, you call all your vendors and start listing
	promises (sorry, but understand we get the new VMS
	when YOU get the new VMS...gonna take a few months
	until your network/mail/word processing/graphics
	works again or you can shelve your updates until
	we are ALL ready)

But of course all of these vendors come to your site and
install their new versions of the software and define all
the X**N logical names which always clash cause they don't
ever have lunch together.

And of COURSE DEC WILL NEVER DROP TOPS-20...oops, sorry,
I meant VMS.....

And of COURSE you only want to buy DEC machines for the
rest of your life no matter if they fit your needs or
not (workstations...next year maybe, PCs...next year maybe,
MAINFRAMES??? depends what you mean, if you don't mean
mainframe maybe we can help you, super-compute engines???
aint 4MIPS on a 8600 enuf for you? What...your 3081 is already
getting 15MIPS???? And the CRAY-II is gonna run UNIX not VMS...
those philistines!)

Most VMS systems I have seen are a nightmare of a patchwork
of random, unintegrated software systems that are never
quite working even at the basic level. Here at BU many more
person-hours are spent trying to keep these crazy-quilts
afloat than any of our UNIX systems.

Of course, if you don't need software other than an editor
and a (admittedly very good for what its worth) Fortran
compiler (and a PRINT command) then you probably should
use VMS. (and a system call interface that rivals OS/360 in
obscurity.)

For me, I'll take my 'chances' with UNIX any day. What a
nice fantasy...to run a computer system without the need
for expertise, I guess it works if you don't actually do
anything with the system....or have very low standards.

		-Barry Shein
		Sr Systems Manager
		UNIX guru
		Boston University
		Distributed Systems Group