From: waltrip@capd.jhuapl.edu
Subject: Re: Open Letter: Don't get rid of UNIX
Organization: CAPVAX, JHU/APL
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 22:48:05 GMT

In article <870@rtbrain.rightbrain.com>, glenn@rightbrain.com (Glenn Reid) 
writes:

	[...some comments to the effect that NeXT should not abandon UNIX
		along with some reasons why not...]

	Wow!  This was an extraordinary post.  Glenn is a smart guy and I
	have to respect what he says.

	If he is suggesting that he needs equivalents for a lot of the tools
	he gets along with UNIX, then I agree with him.  If he means that he
	won't settle for anything other than UNIX and the exact set of tools
	UNIX provides, then I wonder what he has against prosperity.

	Yup, prosperity.  He says about UNIX that "It's familiar ground for a
	huge number of programmers and users..."  If the numbers of UNIX
	programmers and users are "huge", what adjectives are left for the
	magnitudes of the numbers of programmers (thousands) and users
	(millions) of MS Windows?  As Philip McDonough said in another post,
	"The real competition for NeXT comes from places other than UNIX
	workstations.  If they don't come to grips with this issue they'll
	remain marginal forever.  Stuck in an OS that is really a dead end."

	Well, perhaps Glenn is independently wealthy and can regard the
	tiny, slow-growth NeXT market as adequate for his needs.  Or maybe he
	doesn't want to compete side-by-side with those Windows DTP apps.

	But, if those aren't the reasons (and I don't believe for a moment
	that they are), I would suggest that Glenn amend his open letter.  I 
	would suggest that he request that NeXT take the opportunity to get him
	access to the mass market that will shortly be represented by MicroSoft
	NT.

	There has been a lot of response to Glenn's open letter and to my
	suggestion in other posts that NeXTSTEP be ported to NT.  The comments
	tend to run along the following lines (liberal paraphrasing at work
	here--quotes designate the paraphrasing and not real quotations):

	1.	"I just like UNIX" (usually for unspecified reasons--but that's
		OK with me 'cause I just like UNIX too).

	2.	"NeXT doesn't have resources both to port NeXTSTEP and keep 
		improving it."

	3.	"I like UNIX because of [a list of some utilities]."

	4.	"I like/need the UNIX API."

	Well, for those who just like UNIX or who like or need UNIX utilities
	or the UNIX API, NT has POSIX.  A core of UNIX utilities is included
	in POSIX and with contributions from GNU and other sources, you can
	expect a pretty good representation of what's already available on
	various UNIX boxes.  Since NT has a microkernal architecture, a UNIX
	server with the full suite of UNIX utilities might be brought along
	as an extra cost option for those not satisfied by POSIX (which, after
	all, represents a UNIX subset).  If it's that important, push for it.

	But push for having your cake and eating it too.  The alternative is
	very possibly nothing to eat at all.

	As to the issue of whether NeXT has the resources to port NeXTSTEP and
	keep on improving it, NeXT already has to spend resources on both
	NeXTSTEP and Mach/UNIX (which ain't no little thing itself).  There
	would be a payoff from not having to spend resources on OS development
	once the port was complete.

	And there would be the real payoffs I have suggested in other posts:  a
	truly huge market (given that Windows 3.1 is currently shipping in
	excess of a million copies a month, it would seem reasonable to project
	that NT will ship at least a million copies next year).

	So Glenn, given NeXTSTEP and a development environment with enough 
	equivalent tools to those you already have (scripts and 'awk' and 
	'sort' or their equivalents and lots more would be there along with a 
	similar file system and, need it or not, object-oriented databases will
	no doubt be available to those who DO want or need them) and make such 
	good use of, wouldn't you really rather have a market of millions of 
	platforms rather than a market of thousands?  I believe you'd quickly
	become the premier DTP vendor on NT (unless some other NeXTSTEP
	product beats you out 8^)


Opinions expressed are my own.
_/_/_/_/ _/_/_/_ _/      _/      _/ _/     _/   _/_/_/_/_/ _/_/_/_/ _/ _/_/_/_/
_/  cfwaltrip     _/    _/_/    _/ _/_/    _/       _/     _/    _/ _/ _/    _/
_/       _/_/_/    _/  _/  _/  _/ _/_/_/   _/       _/     _/_/_/_/ _/ _/_/_/_/
_/  Internet: <waltrip@capsrv.jhuapl.edu>  _/       _/     _/  _/   _/ _/
_/_/_/_/ _/          _/      _/ _/      _/ _/_/_/_/ _/     _/    _/ _/ _/