*BSD News Article 39141


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From: lm@fubar (Larry McVoy)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.aix,comp.unix.bsd,comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit,comp.unix.solaris,comp.unix.unixware
Subject: Re: Unix for PC
Followup-To: comp.unix.aix,comp.unix.bsd,comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit,comp.unix.solaris,comp.unix.unixware
Date: 8 Dec 1994 22:29:27 GMT
Organization: Silicon Graphics Inc., Mountain View, CA
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References: <199411210319.TAA18133@nic.cerf.net> <D0E32G.3x8@news.cern.ch> <D0G3ys.DB6@novell.co.uk> <D0I7Fq.C1p@news.cern.ch> <3c7qli$glm@pdq.coe.montana.edu>
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Nate Williams (nate@bsd.coe.montana.edu) wrote:
: C'mon Dan.  Commercial OS software testing is completely different than
: free software testing in general.  The reason Linux and FreeBSD have
: more features than the commercial x86 versions sooner is because
: stability is not as important as 'feeping creaturism'.  Features comes
: first, and stability comes second.  And, it's a lot more fun to do
: things that way. :-)

I hate to burst your bubble, but I worked at Sun in the systems group for
a few years (and then in the server group).  They had *no* regression 
test other than the binaries that shipped with the OS.  Since 5.x,
they use the POSIX test suites but those (were) are pathetic and 
certainly don't cover everything.

The commercial OS release mechanism is pretty similar to Linux.  You send 
out some alpha junk to a few sites and see what the reaction is.  The closer
you get to beta the less you allow in.  After beta only show stoppers get
in.

Stability is important but there is little in the way of testing done to
insure stability.  SMCC might be fixing that, I understand they have/had
Solaris 2.4 months before they shipped it.  :-)
--
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Larry McVoy			(415) 390-1804			 lm@sgi.com