From: mcintosh@gruvy.enet.dec.com (Steve McIntosh)
Subject: Re: Ultrix 4.2A - going to die ?
Keywords: ultrix
Reply-To: mcintosh@gruvy.enet.dec.com (Steve McIntosh)
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Distribution: comp
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 21:20:49 GMT

Bernd,

I was shocked to to read this note!  You need not worry.  See corrections 
below in text.  

Steve 

In article <2313@inasys.UUCP>, behe@inasys.UUCP (Bernd Hentig) writes:
|> Path:
|>
nntpd.lkg.dec.com!news.crl.dec.com!deccrl!decwrl!olivea!uunet!mcsun!Germ
many.EU.net!unido!inasys!behe
|> From: behe@inasys.UUCP (Bernd Hentig)
|> Newsgroups: comp.unix.ultrix
|> Subject: Ultrix 4.2A - going to die ?
|> Keywords: ultrix
|> Message-ID: <2313@inasys.UUCP>
|> Date: 21 Aug 92 10:02:37 GMT
|> Distribution: comp
|> Organization: inasys GmbH, Bonn, Germany
|> Lines: 24
|> 
|> Hello,
|> we are currently cross developing software on Ultrix 4.2A (DECsystem
|> 5000/240),
|> AIX 3.x on RS6000 and ISC Unix 3.0.
|> Since ISC was bought by Sun, I think we will switch over to another
|> vendor to get the 'real' V.4.2 Unix sometime in the future as ISC
|> Unix
|> will not be supported forever.
|> 
|> We knew about OSF/1 and DEC's statements to drop Ultrix development
|> and we also knew that DEC fired all Mips developers (is this really
|> true ?
|> can't imagine they REALLY did this).

DEC OSF/1 is our primary UNIX offering.  However,  we will continue to support 
and issue new releases of ULTRIX.  It will run on MIPS.  There has been
no mass 
elimation of MIPS/ULTRIX engineers.  Many have gone to work on OSF/1
which 
runs on MIPS and soon ALPHA.

|> 
|> The question to us is: has DEC Ultrix any future or not ?

Yes.

|> When OSF announced that they dropped OSF/1 development (did they or did
|> they not, nobody knows here in Germany ...) we wondered what DEC would do
|> to their instable pre-versions of OSF/1 (perhaps rename to Ultrix 5.0 :)
|> 

I  am not aware that OSF announced they were dropping OSF/1 development.  
I know they have released 1.1 and the next version is up and running in their 
development lab.   I beleive it was the press that suggested OSF was dropping 
OSF/1 development, and OSF quickly made an  announcement that it was untrue. 

But I do know that DEC OSF/1 V1.0 is shipping and stable.  But, please
don't take my 
word for  it;  read the "OST Labs" column in the May 11, 1992, edition
of Open 
Systems Today.   ULTRIX V4.2 is compared in great detail to DEC OSF/1. 
Commands 
and utilities are compared; applications are ported; benchmarks are run,
etc.

The author's conclusions: 

	"pleased with DEC OSF/1 V1.0's stability, .. and speed."  

	"When you consider that ULTRIX has been through several releases 
	  and benefits from nearly 8 years of UNIX performance tuning and 
	  research,  it seems quite amazing that the [performance] results 
	  are so close."

|> If Ultrix is no longer updated, then support will die sometime in the
|> future, then we should better switch to OSF/1 as we need someone who
|> cares about bug fixing in our OS's.
|> 
|> But if OSF/1 is no longer developed by the OSF and DEC's version is too
|> unstable yet (remember the old Ultrix versions ...), what shall we do ???
|> 

See above....ULTRIX is safe and DEC OSF/1 is sound!

ULTRIX V4.3 just shipped with new functionality like update installation, new 
hardware support, and improved quality (bug fixes).  DEC OSF/1 V1.0 is
shipping 
now and V1.2 is in field test (shipping early '93 on ALPHA).
	
|> Bernd
|>