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From: sl@vanbc.wimsey.com (Stuart Lynne)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.misc,comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit,comp.unix.bsd,comp.windows.x.i386unix,biz.sco.general
Subject: Re: SCO market share
Date: 15 Dec 1993 19:53:48 -0800
Organization: Wimsey Information Technologies
Lines: 64
Message-ID: <2eom4c$t2h@vanbc.wimsey.com>
References: <9312142221.aa02201@fags.stonewall.demon.co.uk> <2elv4l$7bf@panix.com> <2em4ds$n22@vanbc.wimsey.com> <2eocag$ce1@u.cc.utah.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: vanbc.wimsey.com
In article <2eocag$ce1@u.cc.utah.edu>,
A Wizard of Earth C <terry@cs.weber.edu> wrote:
>In article <2em4ds$n22@vanbc.wimsey.com> sl@vanbc.wimsey.com (Stuart Lynne) writes:
>>>were that broken (as commerical OSes clearly are just as often as free ones,
>>
>>That's a pretty sweeping statement.
>>
>>Can you please supply some quantifiable data, the metric's you're using,
>>the method used to collect same etc.
>
>Surely as an Internet SCO UNIX troubleshooter, you are aware of the Lachman
>bug where the remote diconeect removes the local context on the first error
>without attempting to recover, such that (for both SCO UNIX and Xenix):
What does this have to do with the statement "as commercial OSes clearly are
{broken} just as often as free ones." ?
I certainly never maintained that commercial OSes are bug free. And
certinaly looking at the number of patches available for things like Solaris
or SCO we know for certain that they are not. My only beef is that this
seems to be a broad and sweeping statement that is NOT backed up by any
facts. And seems to be a subjective personal opinion. Which is ok, most of
the net is just that.
My personal opinion is that with a large piece of software (such as an OS)
the longer it has been sold, the larger the user base, the lower the number
"serious" bugs (i.e. showstoppers, prevent the system from being useful,
panic etc type bugs). More users equals more bugs found, more time equals
more bugs fixed.
If we can agree that (for example) there are more users of SCO or Sun OS or
Sparc than Linux or netBSD or BSD386. And that they have been in production
mode for longer. So I would contend that they probably have less problems
with them. Of course this is a personal opinion. I don't work for any of the
above so I don't have access to their buglists, or customer counts.
>There are bunches more examples of "well known problems" besides these
>(Check out Eric Raymonds PC UNIX FAQ) that have yet to be corrected.
>
>Something being commercial no more enobles it than it being non-commercial;
>broke code is broke code.
Sure. But do you *seriously* believe that every user of SCO or Xenix or
Solaris or (pick your favorite UNIX version) could install a PD UNIX
tomorrow at 9:00AM and have everything up and running by suppertime? We're
talking about a lot of users who barely know how to log in once they get it
installed.
I know *I* could install a PD Unix here and have lot's of fun. But I don't
think it would be usable on our main machine. We'd have to get drivers for
Digiboard and Adaptec 2742's. And DAT's, etc. Not too mention I'd have to
recompile everything from scratch that we've worked on for the last five
years under SCO. And implement a new set of sysadmin tools. And make sure
it's secure. And of course once I'd done all that I'd be an netBSD sysadmin
expert and I could probably make lot's of money locally doing that. Not!
Anyhow, have a nice day. There is certainly room in the market for both
commercial and free OS's. I don't think they really compete for the same
users at this point.
--
Stuart Lynne <sl@wimsey.com> ........... 604-936-8649(voice) 604-937-7718(fax)
Installable Software for SCO UNIX ............ ftp.wimsey.com:~ftp/pub/wimseypd
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