From: sef@kithrup.COM (Sean Eric Fagan)
Subject: Re: SVr4 and clone hardware buyer's FAQ
Organization: Kithrup Enterprises, Ltd.
Date: Wed, 08 Apr 1992 00:14:29 GMT

In article <3893@airs.com> andrew@airs.com (Andrew Evans) writes:
>The previous
>release was Version 2.2, anyway; 

The previous version was 3.2v2.  SCO cannot call it '3.2.2' because AT&T
won't let them.

>what happened to Version 3?  

Consisted of a few changes (the lfn and symlink stuff, as well as a couple
of other things) which was distributed to a few customers, and that was it.

I don't know why SCO decided to go with 3.2v4.  It is possible that it was
to make people thinking about going with SysVr4 think SCO had that, but I
sincerely doubt it; the ads just don't come even close to making that claim.

>The corporate buyer who has no idea what the
>distinguishing features of an SVR4 operating system are could easily
>get befuddled into buying SCO's product.

What are they?  Why does the "corporate buyer" *care* what the base OS is,
if it has the features (s)he needs?  The only reason to care about SysVr4
vs. SysVr3 is:  for kernel programmers, for device drivers, for compiler
writers, for applications which require SysVr4.  Guess what:  there aren't a
whole lot of applications which *do* require SysVr4!  Almost everybody still
writes for XENIX/286, XENIX/386, or, growing in numbers now, UNIX/386 3.2.

For people who compile, I have had almost no problems getting almost
anything working under 3.2v2.  In fact, I've had more trouble getting
certain things to run on a Sun than on my machine.

>I think it's deplorable of them to want to charge $400 for what
>amounts to a bunch of bug fixes and detail improvements that no one
>should have had to put up with in the first place.  

Bullshit.  Since you didn't work on the code, I seriously doubt you know
what went on with it.  The long filename work and symbolic links were *not*
trivial; the kernel work was the *easiest* part, and still took a while to
get right.  The compiler and company had to be changed to allow longer
filenames (bet you didn't think of that, did you?), as did about a dozen
other utilities.  I came up with an initial list, for the base OS
distribution, but just grep'ping in the entire source tree for DIRSIZ.  And
that wouldn't cover half of the work.

More stuff was done.  The only part I had a hand in was the rewritten tty
subsystem, and, even then, I didn't do a whole lot (although I would like to
think it was nicely done 8-)).

3.2v4 is *not* "just a bunch of bug fixes."  That could be an excellent
reason why they skipped "v3":  because it has a ton of new features, and not
just a "maintainance release."

Tell you what... since you know so much more about how to run a company, why
don't you go apply at SCO and get a VP job.  Since you know *so* much about
running a company, surely you can direct SCO better than anybody they've
currently got.

-- 
Sean Eric Fagan  | "One form to rule them all, one form to find them, one
sef@kithrup.COM  |  form to bring them all and in the darkness rewrite the
-----------------+  hell out of them" -- sendmail ruleset 3 comment from DEC.
Any opinions expressed are my own, and generally unpopular with others.
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sysv386