From: casper@fwi.uva.nl (Casper H.S. Dik)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Subject: Re: Why is Sun abandoning SunOS4.1.3?
Date: 20 Dec 92 16:12:43 GMT
Organization: FWI, University of Amsterdam

epc1@quads.uchicago.edu (Merlin) writes:

>Why is Sun losing touch with their customer base?  First, they
>use and continue to use a ridiculous, ugly windowing manager (olwm) despite
>the fact that a majority of their users use mwm.  OpenWindows is fine
>but I want Sun to provide mwm.  Yes, I hate paying $250 for a license
>for every Sun we buy.  

The majority of their users using mwm? This subject is pretty
much beaten to death and it seems that this is not true. There
seems to be an about 50-50 split between mwm and olwm.(Or 60-60
split). If Sun was to ship motif, all users would have to pay for that
shit. I prefer OpenLook over Motif. But I prefer to use *twm, as
the twm family is the fastest fasmily of window managers available.

>Now, Sun is abandoning SunOS!!!  The question IS NOT why don't vendors
>port their apps but WHY can't I run my old apps on new, faster hardware?
>Sun is supposed to be custoemer responsive and built its successes on 
>meeting user's needs where traditional, large computer makers used
>proprietary software and OS's.  Now, they're telling everyone to
>abandon their old knowledge and apps for a new OS.  What does Solaris 
>incorporate that they could not put into SunOS???  Buying old hardware
>to support an old OS is not an option in my opinion.  They should not
>have caused such confusion in the first place.  

We have no problem running old apps on SunOS 5.x (Sun isn't abandoning
SunOS, they are just innovating it). It is true that they have made
a bigger step this time, breaking more software that when we moved
from 3.x to 4.x, though I remember distictly that I had to maek a number
of modifications to programs back then.

Sun provieds a backward compatibility package that works well for me.
You cannot simply add things to SunOS. Sometimes you have to redesign
and reimplement large parts of the OS. The support for threads and
multiprocessirs already obviated the need for a total kernel overhaul.
A lot of things have been made more modular and have been cleaned up.

Sun has been warning for 3 (or more years) that they would change.

>If this is the direction that Sun is taking, then they will definitely 
>alienate people who bought their machines.  Sun is no better and no
>worse than other vendors who say, "do what we tell you to do when we
>tell you to do it.  if you don't listen to us, we won't supprt your old
>os forever and you won't be able to run our newest and fastest machines"

That's what all vendors have been doing forever. Sun gave you a three year
warning. Have you been listening? No vendor supports old OSes forever.

>This is the straw which will cause me to stop being Suns and start
>purchasing new machines which seem more customer-oriented.  I 
>have been really impressed with the way DEC is remanaging their
>business and producing fast machines (i.e. Alpha).  I hate the
>fact that our group works on VAXs, MIPs machines, and SUNs.  However,
>with this ultimatum by Sun, I will not continue to purchase their
>machines.

All machines will be running something that looks like SysV in the end,
except those people that do OS research. Impressed with DEC? You're
the first. OSF/1 has been abandoned by most vendors and will
die within a few years. DEC will switch to SysV within 4 years,
if they continue to be in business (I have some doubts about that).

But if you're impressed with DEC, that ships machines with incompatible
hardware, running an incompatible (with everything else) OS,
then what's your problem with Solaris 2.x? It's new, runs on your
current hardware, runs most of your old programs, even compiles
most of your old programs, not incompatible enough, perhaps? 

Casper
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware