O'pain Software Foundation: (2) Why is it better than AT&T?

[Matt Landau]

In comp.unix.wizards (<14181 at tut.cis.ohio-state.edu>), Karl Kleinpaste writes:
>I'm really, really tired of hearing all the OSF sponsors moaning that
>"AT&T & Sun's relationship will put all the other companies at a
>disadvantage for N months after release of SysVRel(M+1) while we port
>it to our machines."
>
>Question: So what else is new?  When was the last time that AT&T
>involved its competitors heavily in a new release of SysV?  

There is a difference in the new situation, though.  The fact is that AT&T
has been notoriously unsuccessful at selling Unix machines, even though
they controlled one of the two major branches of the Unix operating
system.  This has meant that DEC, IBM, Apollo, etc. didn't have to worry
about AT&T as a competitor.

Sun, on the other hand, is one of the most successful companies going, and
the OSF cabal *has* had to worry quite a bit about them (to put it mildly).  
Historically, though, Sun has had to play catch-up on the OS at the same rate 
as everyone else.  (That's not really true, of course, since Sun has tended 
to innovate more than most of its competition, but it IS true from the point 
of view of SysV compatibility features and passing SVVS.)

The OSF contingent now fears that they will have to worry not only about
Sun's well-regarded machines and generally superior price/performance
ratio, but also about its ability to deliver a verified "standard" System V
implementation long before any of them can do so.

This is a reasonable argument.  If it had come from a group with more of
an historical committment to open systems (even as much as Sun's committment,
which involves things like publishing the NFS and ONC specs, licensing
SPARC to anyone who wants it, etc.), I might be more inclined to believe 
that it's more than just petty political posturing.  
--
 Matt Landau		    The happiest cold and lonely guy 
 mlandau at bbn.com	          stuck in the Yukon without a dog.