From: gary@sci34hub.sci.com (Gary Heston)
Subject: Re: Novell signs letter of intent with AT&T to acquire USL
Keywords: UNIX, SVR4, USL, Novell
Reply-To: gary@sci34hub.sci.com (Gary Heston)
Organization: SCI Systems, Inc., Huntsville, Al.
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 16:46:44 GMT

In article <1992Dec22.225536.9215@netcom.com> messina@netcom.com (Tony Porczyk) writes:
>dseeman@novell.com (Daniel Seeman) writes:
>
>>In article <1992Dec22.144054.12914@sci34hub.sci.com> gary@sci34hub.sci.com (Gary Heston) writes:
>>>In article <brian.66.0@SJF.Novell.COM> brian@SJF.Novell.COM (Brian Meek) writes:
>>>>Novell signs Letter of Intent with AT&T to ACQUIRE Unix system 
>>>
>>>Oh, hell....
>>
>>an awefully grumpy response.  Can you not give it a chance?
>
>I guess Gary feels that UNIX will now follow UNIXWARE, not that UNIXWARE
>will be just one more derivative of UNIX.

I think Unix will become less usable and far more expensive, if it
survives at all as a separate product.

>                                           I don't know how justified
>that fear is, hope it is not.

I would like to hope not as well, however, I just don't see Novell 
actively pushing Unix when it is a major competitor to their core
product, NetWare. The wolves have bought the flock of sheep, and I
just don't forsee a managed breeding plan in the future.

>                               Besides, there are companies who are
>not following slavishly USL's steps, like SCO, and they seem to be doing
>quite well.  Are they suddenly no good, either? 

You missed something; *all* these companies are dependent upon USL, and
soon Novell, for *licenses*. Contracts for these licenses need to be
renewed periodically. SCO is already expensive; they are also not technically
near the leading edge. If their price goes even higher, and technology 
doesn't improve, what will happen to them? Virtually every workstation 
vendor is in the same situation, particularly Sun. This bothers me.

>                                                 I do not think that Novell
>believes that if drastic changes are made to future versions of UNIX then
>companies like SUN would follow that standard anymore.  No, Gary, I would
>not be so pessimistic, I believe Novell has much more business sense that
>you give it.

If Sun can no longer get the license for the basis of their existing
technology, what choice will they have? Try to write a clean-room 
Solaris 2.0 clone from scratch? And then fight the lawsuits?

I'm not trying to say Novell has no business sense; I think they have 
*excellent* business sense. (After all, anyone who can sell a glorified
disc emulator and print buffer package for several thousand dollars is
not stupid or incompetent, particularly when they can invent their own
standard for TSRs [NLMs] and have developers clamoring for a chance to 
use it.) What I'm saying is that Novell will likely take a course of 
action that will be very good for Novell, and a disaster for Unix users.
From Novells' viewpoint, eliminating a competitor is an excellent move. From
the viewpoint of the competitors' customers, it's not.

>              And besides - you can always vote with your pocket book
>and buy from a different vendor, no?

Who? I know of two free Unixes, and one very limited lookalike product
that are available, but *every* commercial Unix-like OS includes licensed
AT&T/USL code, so far as I'm aware. And the free ones depend heavily on
BSD code, which is now in limbo due to BSD shutting down, and AT&Ts lawsuit.

-- 
Gary Heston    SCI Systems, Inc.  gary@sci34hub.sci.com   site admin
The Chairman of the Board and the CFO speak for SCI. I'm neither.
"Data sheet: HSN-3000 Nuclear Event Detector. The [NED] senses the gamma
radiation pulse [from a] nuclear weapon." As if we wouldn't notice...
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