From: grima@iphase.com (Gary Rima)
Subject: Re: Novell to buy USL !?
Summary: rebutting Heston's unreasonable statements
Organization: Interphase Corporation, Dallas Texas
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 19:33:34 GMT

In article <1992Dec29.033023.20700@sci34hub.sci.com> gary@sci34hub.sci.com (Gary Heston) writes:
>In article <brian.83.0@SJF.Novell.COM> brian@SJF.Novell.COM (Brian Meek) writes:
>>There's been a lot of negative reaction to this news and I certainly don't 
>>wish to fan the flames...  I understand where many of the concerns are 
>>coming from, but I would like to see a bit less public speculation (based 
>>primarily on emotions) and a bit more openness.  After all, isn't UNIX 
>>typically associated with "open systems"?  
>
>Yes. Novell isn't, which is one of the things that concerns me a lot.
>
Well, I've watched this thread passively 'till now, but just can't let that go
unchallenged.  IMHO, Novell is associated with "open systems".  Witness on one
hand the support of TCP/IP within NetWare 3.11 and the support for NetWare
services under UNIX, on the other hand Novell's willingness to provide source
licenses for their own SPX/IPX as well as the core NetWare services.

I'm afraid you're making the old mistake of assuming that "open" and
"proprietary" are opposites - they're not!  "Open" and "closed" are opposites
as are "proprietary" and "public-domain".  UNIX is considered to be "open",
but is definitely "proprietary".  I think NetWare fits the same two categories.
OTOH, if you're knocking NetWare for making TCP/IP and NFS optional while
SPX/IPX and NCP (NetWare Core Protocols) are standard, let's take a step back
and look for a moment.  In terms of total number of attached nodes worldwide I
believe you'll find Novell's IPX is the dominant protocol - bigger than TCP/IP.
In spite of this Novell does offer full support for TCP/IP and NFS - even though
it's an option.  Generic UNIX, OTOH, doesn't provide direct support for NCP and
SPX/IPX.  It was left to Novell to provide both of these services for UNIX
platforms.  Now, who's more "open"????
>
>If Unix gets hacked up ("purified" is a term I've heard, but I don't know
>the context) to make sure it doesn't cut into the sales of that grossly
>overpriced cash cow called NetWare, then it will have been cut down, and
>a large forest of users/licensees will be wiped out.
>
Ah, so if Novell takes UNIX and adds integral support for NetWare protocols
and services, thereby making it more "open" you now choose to refer to that as
"hacked up".
>
>>Novell's activities with respect to the UNIX networking market to date 
>>have been upon two distinctly different paths, which cause wonder where 
>>many of the fears I'm hearing are coming from.
>
>>On one hand, Novell has made real efforts to adopt and *promote* more 
>>"traditional" UNIX networking technologies based upon TCP/IP standards 
>
>At incredible prices. Not only does a medium-sized version of NetWare
>(say, 100 user) cost 4x a decent SysVr4 implementation (Dell, for 
>example), in order to add NFS (already in the SysVr4) one must pay over
>twice the price again! (100 user 3.11 lists for $6995, 3.11 NFS for $3995,
>and Dell SysVr4 for $1600, last I heard.)
>
Yeah, and a Sun Sparcstation 10 is incredibly more expensive than a 386 PC.
Let's compare apples to apples, please.  I'd be really interested to see the
Dell box running SVR4 trying to adequately service 100 clients, vs. the same
box running NetWare 3.11.  C'mon, Gary, do you really believe that if NetWare
was as wildly overpriced for its functionality as you claim, that Novell would
not be only still alive, but prospering and growing??  I really choose to give
the collective market more credit than that.  I don't think NetWare's sales
numbers are merely because people feel sorry for Ray Noorda and want to send
him money!!

Finally, for conversation's sake, I'd suggest that if UNIX had been strongly
promoted and market by someone *like* Novell a few years ago, maybe we'd have
_one_ version of UNIX right now, instead of the several incompatible versions
that currently exist; and maybe we'd all be working with UNIX instead of
trying to decide between OS/2, NT and multiple *NIX's and suffering from too
few applications available for any of them!!

-- 
Gary L. Rima						Interphase Corp.
PP-ASEL-IA						(214) 919-9226
Centurion N7358E					grima@iphase.com
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