From: emike@sdc.com (E. Mike Durbin)
Subject: Re: Why is Sun abandoning SunOS4.1.3?
Organization: Systems Development Corporation
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 15:25:16 GMT

In article <1992Dec19.221627.20632@midway.uchicago.edu> epc1@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
    >Why is Sun losing touch with their customer base?  First, they
    >use and continue to use a ridiculous, ugly windowing manager (olwm)
    >despite the fact that a majority of their users use mwm.  OpenWindows
    >is fine but I want Sun to provide mwm.  Yes, I hate paying $250 for
    >a license for every Sun we buy.  

I'm very curious why you feel the need to.

:-) What customer base?  *I* use SWM at work and OLWM at home
:-) (my machine at home has much less memory).  I HATE MOTIF.

:-) Personally, I'm glad Sun is pisses off MOTIF users.

Because Sun is doing what *I* want, does that make them right?   NO.
Because Sun is not doing what you want, does that make them wrong?  I
don't think so.

    >Now, Sun is abandoning SunOS!!!

No they are not.  I'm happily running SunOS 5.1 now.

THEY ARE ABANDONDING A *HEAVILY* modified version of 4.2BSD
for a much more open, much more standard BSD/SYSV merged OS.
(However, they'll probably HEAVILY modify this too [Sun - if SVR4.2
is good, how long will it take for you to support it?]).

    >                                 The question IS NOT why don't
    >vendors port their apps but WHY can't I run my old apps on new,
    >faster hardware?

YES IT IS.  DOES YOUR OLD 3/60 APPS RUN ON A SPARC?  Or were they ported?

    >Sun is supposed to be custoemer responsive and built its
    >successes on meeting user's needs where traditional, large
    >computer makers used proprietary software and OS's.  Now,
    >they're telling everyone to abandon their old knowledge and
    >apps for a new OS.  What does Solaris incorporate that they
    >could not put into SunOS???

See above.

    >                                       Buying old hardware
    >to support an old OS is not an option in my opinion.  They
    >should not have caused such confusion in the first place.  

I know people that still have SunOS 3.5 because the software they
run won't work on SunOS 4.x.  Is this Sun's problem, or their (non
existant) software vendors problem?

    >If this is the direction that Sun is taking, then they
    >will definitely alienate people who bought their machines.
    >Sun is no better and no worse than other vendors who say,
    >"do what we tell you to do when we tell you to do it.  if you
    >don't listen to us, we won't supprt your old os forever and
    >you won't be able to run our newest and fastest machines"

You say:
	"we won't supprt your old os forever and
	you won't be able to run our newest and fastest machines"

Sorry, but I can't see the problem with this.
Windows dosn't run all DOS applications.  It provides a DOS BOX where
well behaved DOS applications will run.  So does Solaris 2.x.

    >This is the straw which will cause me to stop being Suns
    >and start purchasing new machines which seem more customer-
    >oriented.  I have been really impressed with the way DEC is
    >remanaging their business and producing fast machines (i.e.
    >Alpha).  I hate the fact that our group works on VAXs, MIPs
    >machines, and SUNs.  However, with this ultimatum by Sun, I
    >will not continue to purchase their machines.

Do you work for DEC?  How many of your VAX/MIS applications will
work on Alpha?  How long will it take your software vendor to port?
Will your software vendor port to OSF/1?  Ultrix?  OpenVMS?  Which
one will you run?  Carefull, if you pick the wrong one, you could
be screwed.


-- 
			E. Mike Durbin
Systems Development Corp.		Open Business Systems, Inc.
emike@sdc.com				emike@obs.com

Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware