From: raz@sleeper.apana.org.au (Roland Turner)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Subject: Re: ENOUGH! Re: BSDI/USL Lawsuit -- More Bad News for Human Beings...
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1993 02:42:03 GMT
Distribution: inet
Organization: Desolation Road Railfan BBS

jbass@igor.tamri.com (John Bass) writes:

[Many things, most of them crock, several are quoted below.]

John, I agree that the structural basis of UNIX is terrible, to describe it
as a dinosaur (which you didn't - but I will) is accurate if flattering. I
have just spent dozens of hours being driven up the wall by the problems of
trying to use an unstable OS to contruct a stable OS. If only its configuration
mechanism were closer to that of, say, Plan 9 or (dare I say it?...) MSDOS.

Linking a gargantuan kernel is indeed ridiculous, but it is workable and it
is currently the easiest approach available to the masses in terms of 
publicly available code. There are no other PD OSs as easily available and 
widely used as 386bsd and Linux (which you didn't mention, but if your 
contention is that the 'crime' is the duplication of structure then Linux is
neccessarily included in the list of offenders) which have the networking, 
multitasking, virtual memory and programmer's tools available on these 
platforms. (I beg you to correct me if I am wrong here. Suggest a better
option and I'll dump 386bsd in an instant.)

>First, the group at UCB, Joltz, BSDI, and others all have acted
>out a plan to attempt to place the AT&T/USL UNIX product into the
>public domain. A conspiracy based in false "Robin Hood" ethics.

This is false. Present your evidence. (NB as per the constitutional
frameworks present in both your country and mine, statements of 
criminal activity such as the above are FALSE until AFTER being found
to be true by a court of law.)

>I doubt the Studios, Screen Actors Guild, or the courts would allow
>the Trekies to rewrite every line/scene of each movie/episode (while

Irrelevant. UNIX is a functional thing, NOT an aesthetic one. (As you
have pointed out, it is at some levels particularly non-aesthetic.)
As I understand it (again, correct me if I am wrong) anti-trust 
legislation REQUIRES corporations developing product to provide 
sufficient information for a competitor(s) to produce a functionally
equivalent product, specifically to promote competition and intensified
development of arts and useful sciences to further the intent of the 
constitutional provisions which ALLOW an entity to own a patent or
copyright in the first place.

>From my view what UCB, Joltz, BSDI and others have done has neither
>advanced the art nor been in the UNIX industries best interest. With

In which case you have been asleep since before you first encountered
UNIX. Note that SVR4 contains numberous features that WERE part of 
4.3BSD (regardless of who developed them) and that WERE NOT part of
SVR3. The BSD project, BY COMPETITION, brought about many of the current
features of UNIX. This is explicitly supported by your nation's 
legislation and is an excellent example of how well it can work.

>They should have followed the example of other university research
>teams and done some REAL research to give us a guiding example of
>what OS's should look like in the next century instead of perpetuating
>the mistakes and frail framework of UNIX's 1960/70's design.

The weight of history will be with us always. No apology.

>Joltz has contended that his goal was to make 386BSD an operating
>system research tool/platform would have been most noble ... if it
>was atleast a 1990's design instead of a warmed over 1960's design.
>The truth is that if this was really his goal, there are dozens of
>better OS frameworks than the tired old UNIX design.

Jolitz reconised a small piece of reality that appears to have escaped
your attention. He utilised existing, freely distributable material
instead of re-inventing the wheel (square though it may be) to save 
several man years. The idea is "foist something on the masses and see
what 100,000+ users can come up with" IMHO.

>There are many ways to build a POSIX compatable OS to advance the
>art ... 386BSD is not in my wildest dreams anything other than the
>bastard child of a tired old 1960's UNIX OS design.

Who ever aid it was anything else?

>Bring on the MACH

Tell me which FTP site to aquire a fully operational 386 implementation from.

> SPRITE

Tell me which FTP site to aquire a fully operational 386 implementation from.

> PLAN9

Tell me which FTP site to aquire a fully operational 386 implementation from.

> and other truely inovative designs.

Tell me which other truly innovative designs and which FTP site to aquire a 
fully operatioal 386 implementation from.

>Let the commercial guys milk the MSDOS & UNIX markets and pay our
>salaries as long as they can. In a few years MSDOS & UNIX are likely
>to be as interesting as IBM 370 OS/MVT, or 360 DOS, or 1620 executive,
>or DEC PDP11/RSTS or any of the other OS technolgies I sometime try
>to remember from my past that USED TO BE the main stream MUST KNOW.

Few must mean something different to you than what it means to me. (few ~= 3)

>I LOVE UNIX and have been a wild supporter for 17 years ... but it
>has it limits, and just as MS-DOS, those limits are preventing
>us from moving forward to better technologies.

This however is totally irrelevant to the discussion.

>It's time we get out of the herd mentality and view the USL vs BSDI
>lawsuit as it really is ... a botched attempt by BSDI & Joltz to
>plagiarize UNIX. Let's not make folk heros of them over their petty
>actions. Lets focus instead on the other teams that are bringing us
>our future.

Let's see your evidence for these ridiculous claims. Let's hear from you
he identity of these other groups and the methods of aquisition of usable
development/evaluation systems.
-- 
Bye for now.
        - Raz.

raz@sleeper.apana.org.au   (Roland Turner)   (OH) 61 2 319 5700