From: snail@lsl.co.uk
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: <None> (Should be Open Systems, bloody NEWS system...)
Date: 14 Dec 92 18:13:35 GMT
Organization: Laser-Scan Ltd., Cambridge

In article <jdd.724022716@cdf.toronto.edu>, jdd@cdf.toronto.edu (John DiMarco) writes:
> HP-UX ~= Ultrix ~= Solaris ~= UNIX(tm)
> 
> They're all different variants of UNIX, unlike VMS. It is indeed quite 
> conceivable to replace say a Sun running SunOS with an HP running HP-UX. 
> Admittedly, the platforms are not binary compatible, but they're much more
> similar to each other than they are to say a VAX running VMS. 
> 
> I would claim these systems were "more open" than the VAX/VMS option.

So would I.
 
> I would not claim these systems were completely open, since the replacement
> of one with the other is still not by any means painless. 

Yes.

>>Sure they're all UNIX, but you can't take on app from a Sun (for example) and
>>run it on a DEC or HP or IBM.
> 
> I can't? I've done it, and so have lots of other people. 

What? You've taken a binary xclock from a Sun box and run it on a HP?
Remarkable acheivement. Thats what I was talking about. Its also what you
mentioned in the first paragraph I've quoted in this post.

If you're talking about porting, well sure loads of people have done it. If you
write your software without going into the OS a lot to get things done, you
CAN port straigh to VMS too (as I described in the previous article I wrote -
which incorrectly omitted Solbourne, Hyundai et al).

>>VMS is not open, but Open VMS has a POSIX layer and those things that are meant
>>to included in an Open System *whatever they are*. And BTW the Alha version is
>>the Open VMS version.
> 
> "Open VMS" is currently an oxymoron. Making VMS POSIX-compliant is an
> improvement.  But it still looks and acts quite different from any other
> OS.

I think you mean "any other UNIX OS". This is a biased statement.
It does act very differently for MSDOS too, but so does UNIX. And no I won't
accept they are very similar, TOS is much more similar to MSDOS than UNIX
(TOS runs on Ataris, for those who don't know).

> It is a much bigger kettle of fish to replace a VMS system with some
> other kind of system than it is to replace one UNIX system with another
> from a different vendor.

Yes

> My basic point is this: A system's "openness" is a measure of its 
> replaceability by a system from another vendor. By this standard, VAX/VMS is
> not very open, and random-workstation/UNIX-variant is more but not completely
> open.

I'll go along with that.
> 
> So far, the most "open" system I can think of is a 386 running DOS:
> - systems available from all sorts of people
> - CPU's available from (at least) AMD, Intel, IBM, and Cyrix

Well, scrap Intel from the list :-), oh and IBM since they second source Intel

> - DOS available from Microsoft and Digital Research (and IBM if you count
>   OS/2 as a DOS replacement), with pretty much complete binary and source
>   compatibility between them.

Yes, I don't like Intel, simply, 680X0 are better, but they let the investment
slide and domesDOS is.....and do I understand this correctly that Windows NT
is a multiprocessing, multitasking *SINGLE* user system? Is that right or
did something hit me over the head whilst I was sleeping?
-- 
snail@lsl.co.uk      

muso/unix joke: "which debugger do you use?"
                "I use dbx..."
                "Oh really, we use Dolby C..."
Motorola inside.
Newsgroups: comp.arch