From: mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: I hate to tell you this, but...
Date: 8 Oct 92 17:23:41 GMT
Article-I.D.: mksol.1992Oct8.172341.14875
Organization: Texas Instruments Inc

In <1992Oct04.105821.27664@microsoft.com> petesk@microsoft.com (Pete Skelly) writes:

>In article <1992Oct3.202903.13653@ultb.isc.rit.edu> rsm8167@ultb.isc.rit.edu wrote:
>> >So, from a Windows bigot to all you OS/2 bigots I say:  "Join us!  Feel the 
>> >power of the Dark Side!  Together the Universe will be ours!!  
>>  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>> 
>> The Dark Side indeed:
>> 
>> ***	MS uses undocumented API calls in their products. When accused of doing 
>> 	such, MS denied they were. And then, when it was proven to be true, 
>> 	MS just shrugged it off as not important. Fair competition is not 
>> 	important when you are on the Dark Side.

>So if MS uses undocumented calls, it's evil.  When other people do, it's not.
>BTW: people have been using undocumented calls for years.  They only started
>doing it with MS products fairly recently, when DOS was released.  Then again,
>UN*X is fully documented, 'cause you can get the source code.

Well, yes.  It's 'evil' because MS controls the operating system.
What that means is that a) they are in a better position to use
undocumented calls, b) they are in a better position to get
undocumented things added to help out their applications, c) they are
in a better position to ensure that the undocumented calls that THEY
use become documented calls in later versions, d) they are in a better
position to ensure that any undocumented call that they do not use
that someone else does use will go away in the next release, and e)
they are in a position of determining what is 'allowable' insofar as
documented calls and interacting with the OS.

I'm frankly bothered at the idea that at least some MS employees don't
understand what the problem is with this.

>> 
>> ***	Dr Dos 6.0 had compatibility problems with Windows 3.1, so they went
>> 	to MS for help. MS refused to help.
>I'm having trouble flaming you, will you help me?

Once again, I'm bothered by you not even getting what the problem is.
Advance copies of Windows 3.1 were provided to PRACTICALLY EVERYONE
WHO ASKED except for the folks doing DR-DOS.

>> 
>> I don't believe in the OS/2 versus NT war. Sure the idea of a "Star Wars" 
>> between operating systems is romantic, but that's all it is. Unix is not
>> dead, and NT is not going to kill it. NT is not going to kill OS/2 either.
>> I do believe that OS/2 will gain a healthy market share, and I do believe
>> that this COMPETITION will lead to better operating systems in general. That
>> is what happens when people have a choice! No single operating system will
>> meet the needs of every PC user! The P in PC stands for personal, and the C
>> might as well stand for choice.

>For the most part, I agree with this.  This "All or Nothing" attitude people
>have is somewhat silly, 'cause most commercial OS's that are released with
>any marketing at all tend to last a while.


>> 
>> 			-----------------------
>> 
>> And by the way, anybody familiar with UNIX will know the true value of
>> preemptive multitasking. Does your OS let you walk and chew gum at the same
>> time? 
>> 
>Ahh, this thread again.  Well, I'm quite familiar with UNIX.  I have
>a question, though.  Before X, how did you do you're multitasking.
>As I remember, you could only really have one single task in the foreground,
>and in much of the stuff I did, the background stuff just stood idle while
>waiting for me to switch to them.  This is besides system components, of
>course, such as the daemons, etc.  Frankly, I didn't use the multitasking
>capabilities of UN*X that much, even though I did major amounts of work
>on UN*X.  (I'm not counting use of system level stuff like daemons here).

Then you underutilized the capabilities of the system.  How many of
the following concepts sound familiar to you from your UNIX days?

	1) '&'
	2) job control
	3) multiple logins

I tend to use all of them quite heavily from my desk (where I don't
happen to have an X terminal).

-- 
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
 in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
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Fred.McCall@dseg.ti.com - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.