att & osf

[Malaclypse the Elder]

In article <1988Aug16.214307.20597 at utzoo.uucp>, henry at utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:

> Even there, one should note that the original work to make the system
> portable was largely done by the Bell Labs research people; AT&T has
> since basically done diddly-squat about improving portability, since the
> remaining portability problems didn't affect *them*.  (They've done a
> little bit of work on portability, but they've also introduced some new
> and gratuitous portability problems of their own, so the overall balance
> is roughly zero.)

i think this is too general a statement and needs clarification.
the biggest step in making the system portable was the implementation
of the system in 'c'.  whether you wish to view this as 'the original
work to make the system portable' is a subjective opinion.  i believe
that the System V developers have done a great job in making the kernel
more portable.  of course, my opinion doesn't really count and neither
does anyone who doesn't do kernel ports.  any real live kernel port
people out there who have an opinion?  (we know that the time required
to do ports is getting shorter and shorter but that may be due to
increased experience).

i would also like to add that i believe henry is again confusing
kernel portability with application portability.  i would like to
know of any specific kernel portability problems that the System V
developers have 'gratuitously' added.

danny chen
att!homxc!dwc