From: hallam@zeus02.desy.de (Phill Hallam-Baker)
Subject: Re: How Open is Open VMS?
Reply-To: Hallam@zeus02.desy.de
Organization: Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron, Experiment ZEUS bei HERA
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 00:46:43 GMT

In article <1993Jan1.133650.5924@ais.com>, bruce@ais.com (Bruce C. Wright)
writes:

|>In article <1992Dec31.164508.1051@cmkrnl.com>, jeh@cmkrnl.com writes:
|>> In article <1992Dec31.190236.29454@zooid.guild.org>, Mark Kovarski
|><kovarski@zooid.guild.org> writes:
|>>> 
|>>> Could someone tell me how "open" Open VMS really is. Is it so open that
|>>> someone can obtain the source codes, or is it another proprietary
|>operating
|>>> system with the word "Open" attached to it? Thanks.
|>> 
|>> VMS is just as proprietary as, for example, SCO Unix, SunOS, HP-UX, etc.
|>
|>Just about the only really `open' system is GNU.  IMHO, most OS vendors
|>who use the term are really engaging in FUD, including DEC's `Open' VMS
|>and Sun's absurd `Open' posturing.

GNU may however be a bit too Open... Problem with GNU is that you never know how
good the quality control was on a particular product. Most of the stuff is real
nice, occasionaly you find some add on that is a real dingbat.


|>For what it's worth, one of the products that AIS sells runs on multiple
|>platforms:  VMS and various flavors of Unix.  Although VMS != Unix and
|>there have been certain problems keeping things coordinated between the
|>two systems, by far the _worst_ problems have been with certain Unix
|>systems, both because of compiler problems and because of OS problems.
|>I don't think I'm at liberty to discuss the details so please don't ask,
|>but the vendors I'm thinking about are very well-known Unix vendors.

My situation too... Only I have problems with two different versions of UNIX
from the same vendor!!! Also the hassle of porting stuff from one site to
another (same platform, same software, different setup)... without super user
privs I refuse to do this sort of work - let the buggers stew.


From my point of view Open system means a system open to the User as well as the
programmer. It is important to be able to connect anything up, to be able to
talk to any machine, to be able to reconfigure the machine at the user level. 
However unless the user is able to interact with the machine in a comfortable
way then the O/S just isn't doing it's job.

To me UNIX is closed because it hides the most powerful methods of doing things
from the user. Much of this is deliberate mystification (biff, grep, man). The
other thing that is closed about UNIX is the minds of too many of it's users. It
is the FORTRAN of the 90s. They know one way of doing something and they are
sticking to it. They are also going to try to force you to use their way if they
can.

I recently suggested that AT&T should have provided a better UNIX shell years
ago. One reply I got back was "If there was a demand for bozo-shell then it
would exist". Someone who wants the directory command to be called "directory"
instead of "ls" is a bozo then? Well I am quite capable of typing ls, in fact I
alias ls to dir. However the people who I have to help with the system don't
know that. When I tell them that something is simple I have to punctuate an
explanation of a procedure with the decyphering of the cabalistic runes
required.


The big problem with UNIX is that it's going to be impossible to connect it
properly to an intelligent file system. UNIX has this opinion that all files are
sequential. An intelligent file system might have quite different ideas. If I
can't interface my computer to a disk drive because the operating system is too
stupid to handle it then it is not an open system.


Problem with O/S flame wars is that everybody seems to see them as VMS vs UNIX
vs W/NT vs whatever. Real question is what is the operating system going to look
like that is going to replace UNIX and VMS (and Windows/NT) ?

POSIX means that we can develop new operating systems and have a vast software
base avaliable from day one. We should be looking for new ideas for O/S design
that take advantage of this opportunity.

--

Phill Hallam-Baker