In <1993Jul8.041711.24937@muug.mb.ca> rgallen@muug.mb.ca writes:

quoted text
> [...]
> must say it's no screaming hell.  Linux is a monolithic kernel essentially
> no different from the OS's of the early 70's.  UNIX's excuse is that it was
> [...]

After reading the 'NT vs Linux (was: Re: truth or dare)' thread for a
while this article triggered my statement...

For me 'NT vs Linux' is no valid comparison. Linux is an indicator for
UNIX becoming really an 'Open System' as it finally kills the price
argument in discussions about UNIX. (Many, many thanks to all of you who
made this possible!!)

As an application created for any UNIX system should run on any other
UNIX system too the real question is 'NT vs UNIX' - and in my opinion
this is not a question anymore - for me it's enough to compare the
capabilities of the window systems (MS Windows vs X11 or NeWS) and I
forget NT.

NT exists because of Microsoft's marketing considerations and not for
technical reasons - millions of people are fooled with a 'new OS' being
a poor subset of UNIX - proprietary and widely incompatible (except in
some cases where mighty Msoft grants _some_ compatibility to UNIX). It
is clear that they make much more money with such a thing than being
just another UNIX vendor. But, it's a pitty from the technical point
of view that there will be no MS-UNIX and that Msoft's apps (most of
them are pretty good) need WABI to run on a _real_ OS.

It seems that most end users and many application programmers treat
operating systems like religions - they don't think anymore or look for
the truth somewhere else after their priest told them that the thing is good.
I partially can understand this, because what's going on inside an OS is at
least as mystically for most of us :-), but companies like Microsoft and
Apple make a lot of money off this fact without any real improvement to
operating system technology.

I hope when Msoft has made enough cash with NT and/or Linux and all
the other UNIXes are able to run their applications Msoft will come down
and give up their unnecessary isolation. If Apple did also and improves
A/UX instead of pushing their proprietary OS life would be much
easier for all the people working in situations where many different
applications (and not operating systems!) are needed.


-bernhard


===============================================================
The Xm++ / CommonInteract Project
Vienna User Interface Group
Bernhard Strassl              University of Vienna
bernhard@ani.univie.ac.at     Dpt. for Applied Computer Science
                              and Information Systems
===============================================================