Hi there!
I guess you (Doug) and RGB, are both missing one important
fact. By the time the "Roadrunner" (i386 from Sun) was out,
there were already some Intel-based Unix variants available,
like Microport Unix and SCO-Xenix. Though _their_ major fault
was the horrible pricing concept, it must have been quite
obvious (from the point of view Sun had at that time), that
the enourmous sum which was spent for porting SunOS 4.0 to
the Roadrunner, had to "flow back" to Sun.
At that time Sun's intention was that an OS is only the vehicle
for selling hardware. Not a product itself, since they didn't
wanted to make themselves concurrence.
And even if they had decided to release a PC-SunOS, the for sure
had taken the same road SCO had taken. With prices high up in the
sky.
So any way you look at it, at that time it was an "obvious"
decision from the "financial departement" within Sun, that
giving away the newly ported OS for almost free would drive
them in major problems. As there was correctly stated before (RGB),
Sun had recently released the first series of Workstations
with a RISC-CPU that had a noticeable benefit before the
standard CISC-machines. But that was not a cheap investment.
At that time, it was a high risc to invest in RISC. ;-)
So it was definitely way out of discussion creating themselves
concurrence on a low budget market with CPUs that were
also a concurrence to their own investment. It would have
made the "enemy" stronger.
Well. - For the rest of the mail, I can only clap my hands
and applause to RGB. I had a very similar experience. My
first UNIX machines were from PLEXUS, and they had a very
nice "vanilla" Unix (Sys3, SysV). After one year working
with them I changed the employer and started working with
Suns. My first machines were 3/60s and the i386 and short
after that came the Sparc1 (I still own a little poster
from LSI Logic on which the Sparc1-Mainbord is printed 1:1 :-)
And: No, I won't sell it. ;-) ).
So I can feel with RGB. I had to "exchange" my knowledge at
least twice. - But if I take into account that I also learned
the OSes of my little Atari 800, my Atari ST, Xenix, Microport,
Minix, Coherent and Linux. Not to mention my experiences with
Macrosloth Ooses... - I should take all that and figure out,
what my "education" is worth... ;-)
But I still hang on my dreams how great the world could be,
if everybody would have an Workstation with an old SunOS...
The two reasons for why I don't use FreeBSD instead of Linux
are:
1.) Linux seems to be best of both worlds, SysV and
BSD. And since I'm working (at work) with SysV,
I don't want to have a change in behaviour between
home and office.
2.) The drivers for my PC-hardware are much earlier
available. If I do buy me a brand new XXX-featured
graphic-card or SCSI-controller, or whatever,
I don't want to wait for two years until the noble
"house of lords" have finished their discussions
and start implementing a driver.
At that time my "brand new" hardware is from the
stoneages and I have a new board in my hands, which
is currently not supported. - Got the hang of it? ;)
However, those two points are crucial for ME. So I don't want to
break any religiuos wars loose here. At least, we're in a Linux-
list, aren't we ? ;-)
'nuff said.
Best regards to everyone,
Herbert
Doug Eadline wrote:
+>
+> This is an off topic response to Bob Browns last post.
+> Delete if you want hard core SMP talk.
+>
+> Wow! What email. I just had one comment to your very
+> insightful story. I always believed that the big
+> impediment to UNIX on the desk top was perceived extra
+> administration overhead.
+>
+> Let me explain. Why back when, I was looking for a 80x86 UNIX.
+> After talking to many people about the idea of using UNIX, the main
+> concern was administration (mounts, log files, user accounts, etc.)
+> not to mention the whole notion of "start up and shutdown".
+>
+> In my opinion, DOS gave many users the false impression that
+> using an IBM PC with MS DOS was a plug and play adminstrationless
+> computer. Turn it on, do something, turn it off. I believe
+> that MS effective pulled of a great marketing ploy by extending
+> this belief to windows. But, as anyone knows as soon as you
+> allow users and applications to shot-gun your hard disk with
+> what ever files they wish you get an administrative nightmare.
+> Indeed, I can not think of one "non-computer-jock user" machine
+> that was not full of temp files and totally misconfigured
+> for their particular needs. I even had one person who bought
+> one of those uninstaller clean up programs and said, "I do not
+> even understand the questions it is asking me".
+>
+> I think now we are seeing the results of the M$ OS mess.
+> People are fed-up with the additional cost (support and administration)
+> required for systems that seem to have an "ad-hoc" administration policy
+> The economics of a well engineered OS (UNIX) vs. an ad-hoc OS (Windows
+> 3.1, 9X) is now being understood in painful economic terms.
+>
+> I agree that had SUN produced a $50 UNIX for Intel, the world
+> would be quite different. It would take some time to catch on
+> because of the administration myth, but it would have caught on.
+> It has taken some time for people learn the lesson. This is
+> one reason why I believe Linux has become so popular NOW - as you
+> mention. Indeed, had even Apple ported their OS to Intel,
+> there would have been a real serious threat to M$ long ago.
+>
+> "But hey, why port our software to a non-proprietary
+> hardware platform. We can make much more money selling
+> our hardware at high margins, charging lot's of money for
+> spare parts. Besides, only we can write an OS ..."
+>
+>
+> Doug
+> -------------------------------------------------------------------
+> Paralogic, Inc. | PEAK | Voice:+610.861.6960
+> 115 Research Drive | PARALLEL | Fax:+610.861.8247
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+> -------------------------------------------------------------------
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