SysV IPC: eyesore or misunderstood art?

[Guy Harris]

>The decision to include IPC in the SVID (assuming it's there; someone
>correct me if I'm wrong) really contradicts the original view of the
>purpose of the System V IPC.

It is in an optional section of the SVID, so SVID compliance doesn't
oblige you to offer it, nor does it oblige you to make it a feature that
can't be configured out (older S5's let you configure it out, I assume
newer ones do as well; SunOS lets you configure it out, and I suspect
other systems also do).  There are applications that use it, which is I
guess one reason why it's in the SVID; there may be better mechanisms,
but if there are N different ones this might make life more diffcult for
people who want to use those mechanisms on different machines.  (Note:
I'm neither saying that its inclusion in the SVID is good nor bad, and I
have no interest in participating in a debate on that subject.)