From: ignatz@chinet.chi.il.us (Dave Ihnat)
Subject: Re: DELL SVR4 - separate /usr and /var filesystem?
Summary: Right, thanks for supporting the specious unbundling argument...
Keywords: dell svr4 filesystem bundling
Organization: Chinet - Public Access UNIX
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 16:03:21 GMT

In article <2AB40B3A.4AC7@telly.on.ca> evan@telly.on.ca (Evan Leibovitch) writes:
>The real choice is whether to pay for it or not. If you know ahead of
>time you'll never need it, being forced to buy and then de-install it
>is not what I'd call a superior "choice".

Ah; you must be a young pup, and have bought the argument that IBM and others
proposed when they first started unbundling software.  You obviously haven't
been in enough real-world sites to have had to curse the day they unbundled
everything, so that when a need arose you had to suddenly justify spending
hundreds or thousands of dollars to get the tool that, had it still been
bundled as part of the package, could have solved the problem in minutes.

This isn't just babble--look at Unix.  Used to be that, no matter how tight
the budget, if they were running Unix you knew that you could turn out good
quality printed documents, since all versions had n/troff.  Today, you either
talk them into spending money on a document preparation system--not likely
at most sites--or find a DOS system with some word processor.  An inferior
and degraded state, IMN-S-HO.

>The need for some people to run DOS programs under UNIX is still very
>real, and is not likely to go away for some time. But technically
>superior options, such as a separate MS-DOS server running Desqview/X,
>and an increasing number of DOS software being ported to run native
>under UNIX, make this option less necessary than it used to be.

"Technically superior options" often aren't options.  There are situations
in which the need is real, but the money needed to implement the "superior"
solution is needed for tasks higher on the priority list.  The presence, for
instance, of Merge would allow an interim solution immediately--and for no
(and I mean NO) additional or incremental cost.  Without this option, the
answer is usually "wait."

>Yes, I understand the economics of it. Dell (or any vendor) can get a
>significant break from Locus if Merge is bundled with every copy of its
>UNIX. That makes the price of the product lower than it might be for
>those who want everything, but guarantees the total product will be more
>expensive than it need be for those who *don't* want Merge.

Oh, balderdash.  Then how is Dell cheaper *with all of this software
bundled into it* than, say, SCO?  If you then go on to argue that it could
be even cheaper if they didn't do it, I'll tell you that just aren't the
right customer for the Dell product.  Which I am doing.  The Dell product
offers a remarkable bargain for the installation which needs both a reliable
kernel, and the flexibility and features to provide an extensible production
*and* development environment without further cash expenditure.  It's a
big win for system integrators and consultants, especially.  If you have a
restricted environment, know exactly what tools you need and will never have
a request to grow beyond what you get with the basic system, and are assured
that there will be no raised eyebrows when you tell your client/employer
that they have to spend between $500-$1500 or more to buy the unbundled
package to do what they later ask of your installation, then by all means
buy an unbundled system.  Just don't try to sink *my* raft by bad-mouthing
the bundled solution...

>Just as I don't want MS-DOS bundled into the hardware I buy (thus
>increasing its cost) if I never plan to use it, I don't DOS bundled into
>my UNIX. Sure that's what Locus would like -- guess why? -- but this is
>a clear case of where unbundling is a feature, not a bug.

Without going into detail, suffice to say that (from what I've been told)
Dell doesn't really care if it feathers Locus' nest or not these days.  Again
I say, it obviously doesn't have any significant effect on the cost of the
system to you if the bundled cost is so exceedingly competetive with the
unbundled systems.  It doesn't get in your way if you don't use it; if the
disk space (minor, at that) required for it to quietly sit there and do
nothing bothers you, a simple session with the system admin shell to uninstall
it will remove even that irritant.  I'll bet you're one of those people who
remove a lot of the Unix commands in /bin and /usr/bin because *you* never
use them...

>I can understand arguments of how LAN software and the development
>system should not be unbundled, especially when they incrementally add
>so little to the cost of the base product. But DOS emulation is clearly a
>third-party adjunct that is not a part of the base package, and has no
>business being wrapped into it.

Oh, my back!  Because *you* need networking, you're willing to accept the
possibility of incremental cost of bundling *that* capability, but not of a
feature that seems useless to *you*?

If I seem more vehement than is appropriate, it's because I'm seeing not only
the same stupidity that justified unbundling of Unix in the first place, and
IBM systems originally; but I'm seeing somebody arguing from a narrow point of
view, in a public forum, for a position that could be used by vendors to ruin
products that *I* have an interest in seeing continued.

Between OS/2 and the (promised) features of NT, if we don't find a way to
provide a sophisticated, capable, and cost-effective Unix that clearly offers
something more for its cost than these single-user alternatives, then we'll be 
in the same boat we found ourselves when the PC was introduced in 1981--
stepping back to technically inferior products for a number of years because
of marketing and dollar decisions, and not for technical reasons.
--
		Dave Ihnat
		ignatz@homebru.chi.il.us (preferred return address)
		ignatz@chinet.chi.il.us