att & osf

[Daniel R. Levy]

In article <1988Aug8.174232.112 at utzoo.uucp>, henry at utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
> In article <2843 at ttrdc.UUCP> levy at ttrdc.UUCP (Daniel R. Levy) writes:
> >Henry, you're the one who seems to be whomping the straw man now.  If
> >MacQuarrie ever "claim[ed] that [AT&T is] bending over backwards to make
> >[System V] portable" I sure missed it...
> 
> Lest we forget, his actual words were:
> 
> 	... show me another vendor which has worked as hard to provide
> 	a truly hardware independent operating system to allow customers
> 	to feely decide what hardware they need to solve their problems...

And MacQuarrie makes a damned good point there too.  You gripe and bellyache
about the UNIX operating system.  OK, you don't like it, come up with another
operating system, NOT a UNIX system workalike, that will port to a gazillion
other machines even half as well.  The UNIX operating system (and its structure
and philosophy, which non-AT&T UNIX system workalikes, such as what the OSF
wants to build, now use without one word of acknowledgment to AT&T or objection
by AT&T--"my how greedy of us") came to exist because of AT&T.

Now... to your claim.  How you could legitimately turn MacQuarrie's quote above
into a "claim that [AT&T is] bending over backwards to..." (do things which,
by the way, AT&T has every right in the world to do or not do) etc. is beyond
MY ken.  MacQuarrie is talking about the big picture, about what AT&T has
created and nurtured into being.  You're narrowly focused on current problems
with System V, and viewed his statement through those glasses, ironic
considering that you talk later on about "taking the long view."
-- 
|------------Dan Levy------------|  THE OPINIONS EXPRESSED HEREIN ARE MINE ONLY
| Bell Labs Area 61 (R.I.P., TTY)|  AND ARE NOT TO BE IMPUTED TO AT&T.
|        Skokie, Illinois        | 
|-----Path:  att!ttbcad!levy-----|