AT&T vs. Berkeley UNIX ??

[Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB)]

I doubt that "Berkeley is developing a UNIX release that emulates
UNIX System V".  This is perhaps a garbled rendition of the following
true fact:

"There is an emulation of UNIX System V that runs on 4.2BSD."

That emulation was done (by me) at BRL and made freely available
to sites having the appropriate licenses.  There has been some talk
about distributing the emulation along with 4.nBSD (for some n > 2)
as "user-contributed software".  At least one major computer vendor
has similar plans.  This is fine with me, since after sending out ~100
tapes I am eager for someone else to do the distribution.  If anyone
is seriously interested in doing this, I would hope that they pick up
the most recent distribution, as there have been continual improvements.


ENTER "SOAP BOX" MODE:

It is apparent to me that, like it or not, the UNIX System V environment
is well on its way to becoming the standard for applications software.
Evidence for this is abundant; for example, there are three separate
published standards documents (well okay, the ANSI C effort is not yet a
published standard) modeled very closely on the UNIX System V system
interface.  As an applications designer I applaud this development.
However, one consequence is that as time goes on it becomes
increasingly important to provide this system interface on other (e.g.,
4.nBSD-based) systems.  I have found an expedient way to do this
given that native facilities have to be used unaltered.  Vendors
with more control over the native system (e.g., Pyramid) have chosen
other methods for accomplishing the same goal.  I have yet to see a
system fully follow the existing specs (not even UNIX System V itself
quite does this), but several come very close.

	gwyn at brl.ARPA			decvax!brl-bmd!gwyn