instability in Berkeley versus AT&T releases (absurdly long)

[John Mashey]

> Then why don't YOU alias "ls | cat" and let the majority of the world work.
> It's these weird variants put in for esoteric special cases that really
> bugs me about SV. How many AT&T 7300s are going to benefit from SV accounting
> stuff?

"Weird variants put in for esoteric special cases..." is a pejorative
description that could be read "I don't need this so it's dumb".  A better
way to have written this might be: "Does anyone know why SYS V accounting
is included in the system? We haven't seen any use for it in our environment,
and it seems particularly unnecessary for single-user workstations. Who
uses it?"

Now, the true facts [and I wrote it, so I know] are:
	a) It is (correctly) in the Optional part of the SYS V spec.
	b) Computer centers do like to be able to usage accounting so they
	can charge people money.  This might not make sense if you've never
	used a computer center or run one, but it is true.
	c) Various people sometimes like to analyze system performance
	and usage [without actually charging people] by looking at
	the accounting output.
V6 shell accounting was [in practice] found to be inadequate for real
computer centers; there was a major push by BTL computer centers starting
about 1977 to offer UNIX; we therefore tried hard to get a minimal
mechanism to become part of V7 [many thanks to DMR for cooperation here]
that would satisfy b) and c) above to avoid having every comp center
do their own thing; the original version had to work on both V6 and V7's;
had to work on PDP-11s; had to be a toolkit to adapt to different people's
ideas of charging algorithms; ought to be reworked because requirements
have changed!

Weird? Esoteric? No, just different needs.
-- 
-john mashey
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