Interesting announcement

[BostonU SysMgr]

Thought you would all be interested, speshuly after all the SYSV vs 4.2 flames

	-Barry Shein, Boston University
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	AT&T AND SUN JOIN FORCES ON UNIX OPERATING SYSTEM STANDARD

[it's long, I'll excerpt it]

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA -- September 3, 1985 -- AT&T and Sun MicroSystems
announced today that they are working together to facilitate
convergence of AT&T's UNIX System V with Sun's 4.2BSD-based operating
system.

...blah blah, what SYSTEM V and 4.2 are...

Roland Pampel, Vice President of Software for AT&T's Computer System's
Division said, ``Consolidating the technical community is an important
step in establishing UNIX System V as the standard operating system for
all computers from micros to mainframes. We welcome the assistance of
Sun in driving the standard forward.''

Bill Joy, Vice President of Research and Development at Sun and
principal designer of 4.2BSD, said, ``This is a significant step toward
unifying the UNIX System license community around a single standard.
The joint AT&T and Sun effort will work on evolving the System V
standard to accommodate the services offered by 4.2BSD.''

Sun's first step in the joint effort will be to add complete
compatibility with AT&T's System V Interface Definition to its
operating system while maintaining all of the features and
functionality of 4.2BSD and Sun's enhancements. Programs written for
the current Sun Operating System software, including those using Sun's
Network File System (NFS), SunWindows, Suns multi-window screen
management package, and SunCore, Sun's graphics library, will continue
to operate in future Sun releases. Full System V Interface Definition
conformance is expected to be available from Sun by early 1086.

...Sun will add System V compatibility to the Sun version of the UNIX
Operating System...available in spring 1986...full Base Level System
V Interface Definition (SVID) compliance will be available in Sun OS
by summer 1986. Sun expects to formally introduce and demonstrate
this capability at the Uniform show in February 1986.

System V Version of Sun's Network File System

As part of this strategy, Sun will port the Network File System (NFS)
to System V. Sun will offer this new System V version of NFS to other
hardware and software vendors under the same terms that it currently
licenses the 4.2-based version of NFS.

...continued support by SUN for 4.2...

...new stuff from SUN like optimizing compilers, SNA and BSC/RJE,
CASE tools, sophisticated multi-window user interface...

Q&A

Q. Is Sun's System V facility a ``layered'' port of System V?

A. ...no...in the kernel...some conflicting things are in other
places...

Q. Will this converged UNIX be available from both Sun and AT&T?
Who holds the licensing rights?

A. Sun will offer an implementation of the common interface on Sun
workstations, and AT&T will license it in a future enhanced version
of System V.

Q. What will it cost?

A. It will be included in the standard release of Sun OS at no charge.

Q. Will Sun NFS become part of System V?
A. Sun will port NFS to System V and make it available to NFS licensees.

Q. Does this mean that AT&T will adopt NFS?

A. AT&T has not announced any distributed or networked file system plans.

Q. Will the new release of Sun OS use the 4.2BSD socket mechanisms, or
Dennis Ritchie's streams?

A. Streams is currently a concept and not an announced product. A
future release of Sun OS certainly will support both sockets and
streams, if a product such as streams were made available from AT&T.

Q. Will 3Bs and VAXes now run the same kernel as Sun? In other words,
will Sun become a certified implementor of ``enhanced System V?''

A. Sun will implement the enhanced System V in a manner that has no
customer visible differences from a standard implementation, and
that is certified SVID compliant by AT&T. Since Sun has evolved
special capabilities for technical workstations in a 4.2BSD-based
kernel, Sun's implementation of the common interface will be based
on 4.2. In a strict sense, 3Bs and VAXes will not run the same kernel
as Sun, but this should not be visible to a customer's applications
if the common interface is adhered to.