Return to BSD News archive
Xref: sserve comp.unix.misc:10471 comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit:5114 comp.unix.bsd:13065 biz.sco.general:9196 comp.os.linux.misc:5321 Newsgroups: comp.unix.misc,comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit,comp.unix.bsd,biz.sco.general,comp.os.linux.misc Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!news.Hawaii.Edu!ames!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!sdd.hp.com!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!uwm.edu!caen!malgudi.oar.net!wariat.org!kf8nh!bsa From: bsa@kf8nh.wariat.org (Brandon S. Allbery) Subject: Re: SCO market share References: <WAYNE.93Dec8164902@backbone.uucp> <hastyCHsyEG.Mun@netcom.com> <1993Dec11.012449.99@kf8nh.wariat.org> <2ec989$knu@vanbc.wimsey.com> Organization: Brandon's Linux box and AmPR node, Mentor, OH Date: Sat, 11 Dec 1993 14:56:10 GMT Message-ID: <1993Dec11.145610.3121@kf8nh.wariat.org> Lines: 66 [I replaced comp.windows.x.i386unix with comp.os.linux.misc. I'm sure the X folks are rather tired of this non-X topic... ++bsa] In article <2ec989$knu@vanbc.wimsey.com>, sl@vanbc.wimsey.com (Stuart Lynne) says: +--------------- | In article <1993Dec11.012449.99@kf8nh.wariat.org>, | Brandon S. Allbery <bsa@kf8nh.wariat.org> wrote: | }In article <hastyCHsyEG.Mun@netcom.com>, hasty@netcom.com (Amancio Hasty Jr) says: | }+--------------- | }| In article <CHs6H8.39C@Celestial.COM> ray@Celestial.COM (Ray Jones) writes: | }| Well, I work in Silicon Valley, and most invididuals that I have spoken to | }| which want Unix at home are either running *bsd or Linux. Granted is not | }| an official survey by any means of the imagination. | }+--------------- | } | }Most home users have better uses for the money it would take to buy SCO, | }Interactive/SunSoft, Esix, etc. Like paying bills.... | | This is a fact that is *not* lost on application software vendors. People | who don't like to pay money for the OS also don't usually like to spend +--------------- I'm not complaining about it. I'm sure if SCO, SunSoft, Esix, etc. thought there was a market for home commercial *ix there would be affordable versions. And I'm not necessarily talking about the hacker-types. There are valid reasons to want to run *ix in a home environment even if you're not a hacker; just not enough people to whom those reasons apply, at present. Many home users don't even use the cooperative multitasking of MS-Windows (except to the extent that MS-Windows itself uses it "behind the user's back" to get things done); they just treat it as a fancier version of DOS Shell. +--------------- | *bsd and Linux make a great hobby. If that's what you want to do at night | it's probably just as interesting as ham radio or model trains :-) +--------------- Well, two out of three ain't bad :-) (I left the model trains for my father to play with...) +--------------- | But I think that it has about the same effect on the rest of the industry as | ham radio or model train enthusiats. Well maybe a little more. +--------------- I should mention here that cellular phone technology has origins in ham radio, and we've been doing radio networking for several years at least. As for Linux commercial applications (and, no doubt, *BSD as well, although I don't hang out in those newsgroups: the Linux hierarchy strains the available bandwidth quite enough, thank you!): there are a bunch of people who would KILL for WordPerfect for Linux as a commercial product. And many others who want to see other packages (Lotus 1-2-3, Island Write/Draw/Graph, etc.). I'm not talking about free clones or pirated copies here, I'm talking about the real thing. ---But the volume almost certainly doesn't justify it as yet. Which is why iBSC2 compatibility is one of the major development areas in Linux at the moment (want WordPerfect? Buy the SCO version and run it) and why we're planning to switch the standard executable format to ELF when GNU support for it settles down. ++Brandon -- Brandon S. Allbery kf8nh@kf8nh.ampr.org bsa@kf8nh.wariat.org "MSDOS didn't get as bad as it is overnight -- it took over ten years of careful development." ---dmeggins@aix1.uottawa.ca Do not taunt Happy Fun Coder. (seen on the Net...)