X-no-Archive:yes
Since Ken's reply covered two different topics, I felt it best to make two
different replies, and this is the second of two. I still hope that where my
replies are incomplete, that others will fill in what I have missed. And I
still hope HP is listening.

Is UNIX a fiction, an illusion, a category that only exists in our mind?

IBM bought Sequent, so they have AIX and Dynix / PTX (actually two
variants), AND Project Monterey. Stratus, in addition to supporting HP-UX,
has their own UNIX variant, and their proprietary VOS. We speak of UNIX as
if it were one thing, whereas it is more like the automobile, or dogs as a
specie, a category with astonishing and seemingly irreconcilable variety
(which would make POSIX a wolf in this analogy, so next time someone tells
you MPE/iX is not open, ask them if a wolf is a dog).

Likewise we speak of Linux, but it is really a collection of Linux variants,
with lots of version numbers, with a small collection of GUIs to choose
from.

We wrestle with shadows. We are seeing ghosts. We act as if they are real,
when experience should tell us otherwise.

The irony is that many Unixeries treat Unixen like Arabic (no offense
intended). What is called Arabic is essentially three languages that are
approximately as alike as French, Italian, and Spanish, but speakers of
Arabic will take as long as it takes to understand each other, because they
will to do so.

Greg Stigers
http://www.cgiusa.com
There is no such thing as UNIX
There is nothing that is UNIX,
to the exclusion of everything else that is not.

-----Original Message-----
From: Ken Hirsch [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, September 25, 2000 5:07 PM
To: Stigers, Greg [And]; [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: How does MPE sound?

<snip>

IBM and Microsoft will survive, other than those, there is only Unix.
(And IBM is consolidating to OS/390, OS/400, and Unix, discouraging new
users on VM/CMS, VSE, OS/2 and anything else that may still linger.)

The same consolidation is happening in the Unix market.  Only 4 proprietary
Unix variants are still viable--HP, Sun, IBM, DEC/Compaq.  And I think
DEC/Compaq's proprietary Unix may not have long left.  Other computer makers
are either adopting one of these Unixes or another "standard" unix, going to
a niche strategy, or disappearing.  SCO has collapsed.

Most computer makers are choosing Linux as one supported OS, and usually
choose Red Hat Linux as the particular variant to support, because it is the
most popular.  HP, Compaq, and IBM are all supporting Linux (Sun does sell
Linux for its machines, but doesn't really support it...yet). This trend
will continue.

Linux is in that dynamic state where market share can change very fast.  As
a result, hardware and software vendors are making the commitment to get in
early--Oracle and other DBMSs are on Linux, IBM is porting its Logical
Volume Manager, SGI is porting its XFS--both of which will make Linux a much
more powerful system.  It's going to be a pain to administer for quite a
while, but clearly Linux is the direction the industry is moving.
<snip>