RFS vs. NFS

[John Mashey]

In article <7556 at brl-smoke.ARPA> gwyn at brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>) writes:
>In article <275 at ksr.UUCP> fdr at ksr.UUCP (Franklin Reynolds) writes:
>>NFS seems obsolete to me. It was ok (though just barely) when 
>>it was introduced but it hasn't kept up with technology.

>I agree with your comments, but to be fair it should be noted
>that one of the explicit design goals of NFS was to work not
>only with UNIX filesystems but also with MS-DOS filesystems.
(Or with VMS or other filesystems.)
>(Apparently somebody thought there was money to be extracted
>from the IBM PC fad.)  I don't know if NFS was actually much
>used with MS-DOS.  I do know that being first and making it
>easy to license the technology was instrumental in Sun's NFS
>success.

To give proper credit, it's more than being first or easy to license,
although Sun did a good job on those.  I actually believe that much of
the success of NFS is due directly to Sun's excellent support, as manifested
in the yearly Connect-a-thon, which, in my opinion:
	a) Is logistically well-organized by Sun.
	b) Gives vendors a chance to test against more machines than any but
	the biggest companies could possibly own.
	c) Is one of the best instances of effective, efficient cooperation
	amongst otherwise competing vendors that I've seen.
-- 
-john mashey	DISCLAIMER: <generic disclaimer, I speak for me only, etc>
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