Unix Bugs vs. VMS bugs

[Martin Fouts]

     To say that the reason there are so many versions of UNIX being
maintained is that there are so many versions of UNIX is much like saying
that the reason that taxes are so high is that taxes are so high.

     The real problem I see raised here isn't that there are so many
people maintaining different versions of UNIX, but that so much
duplication of effort goes into maintaining the same version of Unix.

     Several times I have fixed a bug just before someone publishes a fix
for it on the net.  I find this very agravating.  I find it even more
agravating to hear from people: "Oh yeah, so and so fixed that awhile ago,
but I don't remember what we did. . ."

     I use to run a shop full of VMS machines and I spent very little time
on software maintenance.  AND, my users were getting as much work done as
the users I have now on Unix.  And before you scream at me for being a VMS
bigot, let me say that I also had a handful of RSTS/E machines, and those
users were getting their work done.

     In fact, with the amount of time we spend down because the system
crashed due to some flakey UNIX bug,  I wonder how we get any work done at
all.

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