*BSD News Article 18474


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From: peh@esca.com (Phil Hystad)
Subject: Re: "NT is UNIX" or so Bill Gates says!!!
Message-ID: <1993Jul15.153530.26913@esca.com>
Organization: ESCA Corporation, Bellevue WA
References: <1993Jul7.222018.20816@dbsoftware.com> <nagleCA6pqt.J1z@netcom.com>
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1993 15:35:30 GMT
Lines: 40

nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle) writes:

>torre@dbsoftware.com (T-Rex Fodder) writes:
>>Now I want to know WHAT does this mean?!?
>>	Is NT UNIX??

>       What it seems to mean is that NT will run most POSIX-compliant
>character-based UNIX programs recompiled for NT.  This is useful,
>but not thrilling.  You'll be able to run lots of pre-window UNIX
>software, if you have source.  Presumably most of the GNU tools will,
>with some effort, work.  

POSIX on NT seems to be a nameplate item only so that the official
government people can say that NT meets all their requirements.  However,
it is important to note the following:

	1.  Posix is support of 1003.1-1990 only.  The other Posix standards
	    such as 1003.2 (Utilities and Command Shell), 1003.4 (real time
	    extensions - yes, it is not approved yet), 1003.4A (threads - yes
	    it is not approved yet), and so on are not supported by NT and
	    it does not appear that support will be quickly forthcoming
	    from MS unless their support is a deep and dark secret.

	2.  Posix applications must run under the control of the Posix
	    protected subsystem, under this subsystem, they do not have
	    access to WIN32 API which means they cannot use other NT
	    system services, do windows, or anthing of that ilk.  Thus,
	    if you are converting your POSIX application, you must convert
	    all of it, you cannot have a mixture of POSIX and WIN32 APIs.


+-------------------------------------+---------------------------------------+
| Phil Hystad                         |  I have nothing to say other          |
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