*BSD News Article 57987


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From: grante@reddwarf.rosemount.com (Grant Edwards)
Subject: Re: Coherent answer to questions about Linux vs. FreeBSD
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References: <30D2FB7F.52C1@ix.netcom.com> <4b089j$usb@twin.wasatch.com> <1995Dec19.232510.8284@rosevax.rosemount.com> <stephenkDKA7o2.Csr@netcom.com>
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 1995 20:19:50 GMT
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Stephen Knilans (stephenk@netcom.com) wrote:

: grante@reddwarf.rosemount.com (Grant Edwards) writes:

: >: Too bad about MWC.  I had heard that Coherent was a decent product,
: >: and the price was certainly right.
: >
: >It is a bit sad.  It was a good product, with excellent documentation.  I
: >suspect that Net/FreeBSD and Linux were the proximate cause of death -- MWC
: >just couldn't keep up.  So far, the only casualty in the war against
: >Microsoft's hegemony seems to be the death of one of the good guys as a
: >result of friendly fire.

: The first version of coherent was VERY IN-coherent.  It was 100% FALSE 
: ADVERTISING!  MANY were angry.

What first version?  If you mean 1.0, then that was way before my time and
you could be correct.  I started with 3.x on a 286 about five or six years
ago. I was quite impressed with it -- I wrote a pty device driver for the
286 version and ported screen (as well as RCS).  Later I did a little worked
on the MGR port (hercules stuff) to 4.0.  I thought Coherent was a damn fine
product, and I'm proud that I was able to contribute a little.

: The 386 version was a LOT better, but STILL didn't live up to promises.

Yes, the TCP/IP and X11 stuff was behind schedule, as I recall.  I don't
remember if demand-paged virtual memory ever shipped either.

: Their tech support STUNK, 

I always had great results with tech support.  They even overnighted me a
beta copy of their bourne shell so I could test the fixes to some of the
bugs I reported.  As far as I recall, all of the bugs I reported got fixed,
and they were quite nice about it.

: and they try to break into your system if you give them a chance.

Huh?  I'd like to hear about that.  I had uucp (dial-in and out) going, but
nobody ever tried to break in...

: Linux is MUCH better!  LESS buggy, CHEAPER, more capable/compatible!

I agree that Linux quickly overtook Coherent (that's why I switched).  MWC
just couldn't keep up with the *BSD or Linux development efforts, but MWC
was out there for 10+ years selling a good, inexpensive, _extreemly_ well
documented Unix clone, and I'm sorry to see they've gone out of business
while Microsoft has prospered.

--
Grant Edwards        | Microsoft isn't the   | Yow!  Look!  A ladder!  Maybe
Rosemount Inc.       | answer. Microsoft     | it leads to heaven, or a
                     | is the question, and  | sandwich!
grante@rosemount.com | the answer is no.     |