From: tal@Warren.MENTORG.COM (Tom Limoncelli)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.solaris,comp.unix.bsd
Subject: Re: Solaris 1.1 vs. Solaris 2.0 (BSD vs AT&T)
Date: 15 Nov 1992 20:23:43 -0500
Organization: There are no pods!
Distribution: inet
NNTP-Posting-Host: sdl.warren.mentorg.com

In <1992Nov15.014513.28154@nobeltech.se> ppan@nobeltech.se (Per Andersson) writes:

>This might be true, but SunOS 4.x is not dead, and has a very large installed 

I hate to say it, but SunOS 4.x is going to be dead very soon.  Inside
and outside of academics I see everyone gearing up for SunOS 5.0.
Software developers are saying that they're supporting 5.0.  Long-term
planners in the software business are assuming that by the time Solaris 2.2
ships, everyone will be running it."

It's scary.

I was recently talking to someone that I have a lot of respect for.
He's a real old-world techie from the old school of Unix and he was
talking about a total upgrade to 5.0 in his shop in a time-table that I
thought was unbelievable (i.e. soon).

I grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him.  "WHAT ARE YOU SAYING???"
He looked at me, there was no sparkle in his eye anymore.  He just
stared blankly at me, as if his eyes weren't focusing on me, but about
4 feet past my head.  In a monotone voice he said, "Oh Tom, face it.
We all know it is the direction that we will all take.  Sun is
providing such excellent tools for porting to Solaris.  Their new
machines only run 5.0.  We should all..."

"YOU'RE A POD, AREN'T YOU?  They've eaten your BRAIN HAVEN'T THEY???"

"Tom, join us and you'll see that..."

At this point I started to run.  Suddenly out of nowhere there were
thousands of people chasing me.  They all had the same blank look on
their faces.  Some of them held press releases of the SPARCServer 2000
and were saying, "It's not vapor, Tom, really!".  Some of them had
strange looking boxes with them and were chanting, "It's not 3 years
late, we just wanted didn't want the Viking to ship until we could pick
the right color!"

Finally, after chasing me for hours I got tired and they caught
up to me.  After being locked in a room, I heard the guards talking
about my appointment with Sun's VP of "Re-Education".  Mr. PipelineTool
himself.  

I wouldn't have escaped if I didn't think quickly.  I pulled out my
Auspex manual guide and showed it to the guards.  One was knocked
unconscious immediately.  Then I pulled out my pocket "vi quick-
reference guide" and held it at the other guard.

"BILL JOY DID THIS TO US!!!  HE CREATED VI AND THEN WENT ON TO CREATE
SUN TOO!  DON'T YOU REALIZE WHAT EVIL YOU WORK FOR???"

At that, the guard responded, "Hey man, I'm just a consultant!  You
can go for all I care.  I can get a job at my brother's deli.  I don't
need this [deleted]!"

And that's the end of my story.

As a post script, I just want to say that part of this story fiction
[it wasn't a vi quick-reference manual], but a lot of it really is
true.  SunOS 4.1.x is dead.  Software developers are blindly porting to
Solaris 2.x.  Why?  Because Sun is giving them really good tools to
port to Solaris 2.x (the PipelineTool).  Users are switching to it.
Why?  The software is becoming stable and new Sun machines won't run
anything else.  Worst part is, Sun knows the biggest issue is speed and
they're tuning the hell out of it and it will be as fast as 4.1.x very
soon.  Heck, even if it isn't as fast we'll never know because of the
shift to new hardware.[*]

Pessimistic?  Me?  Nah.  This happens in the computer industry all the
time.  #1 falls under it's own weight, or some tides shift more than
expected.  In the final analysis, we find that "we" (the techies)
always adjust.  We need our jobs and we work on whatever hardware and
software the job adverts are telling us we'll work on.  On the bright
side, competition has never been stronger among Unix vendors and the
demands of competition will most likely improve other aspects of the
Un*x OS's so much that we'll forget about this.

Just watch out for the pods.

Tom Limoncelli
[ Not speaking for my employer or any of my associations, or my cat. ]

* -- If the comparisons are always on SPARC 2's Sun can always claim
that the newest releases really only help multiprocessor machines which
don't run 4.1.x, so a apples-to-apples comparison can't be done.  Sadly,
this is likely to be true.
-- 
Tom Limoncelli -- tal@warren.mentorg.com (work) -- tal@plts.uucp (play)
Reality is stranger than fiction #943247:  The IRS granted
ANS approval as a 501c3 "charity" on September 14, 1992.
Xref: sparky comp.unix.solaris:330 comp.unix.bsd:9072