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Date:      Thu, 24 Aug 2000 18:19:31 -0600
From:      Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org>
To:        j mckitrick <jcm@FreeBSD-uk.eu.org>, Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com>
Cc:        chat@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: OSS, Sun, GPL, random ramblings
Message-ID:  <4.3.2.7.2.20000824180838.00e0c750@localhost>
In-Reply-To: <20000825001125.A58486@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org>
References:  <200008242057.NAA15423@usr06.primenet.com> <20000821140419.B13975@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org> <200008242057.NAA15423@usr06.primenet.com>

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At 05:11 PM 8/24/2000, j mckitrick wrote:
  
>I've heard a lot of people rave about VMS.  What was so great about it?  

It was highly optimized for transaction processing and database work, 
which made it an ideal "back office" OS. It had a more consistent design 
philosophy and more consistent conventions than UNIX. Some folks didn't 
like its "corporate" feel and its orientation toward screen-oriented 
rather than character-oriented applications, but it did many things 
very well.

>Also, what is so advanced about SYSV, and why can't those strengths be
>applied to BSD?  Since Linux is based on SYSV, where did it go wrong,
>besides the obvious answer, fragmentation?

Most people believe that AT&T's purpose in creating System V was to wrest
control of UNIX's standards and conventions away from CSRG and BSD, which
had de facto control of them before divestiture. Many of the changes made 
in System V were motivated by a desire not to improve the OS but to make 
it different from, and annoyingly incompatible with, classic BSD UNIX. 
While System V did erase a few inconsistencies that had crept into BSD 
(e.g. conventions for command line arguments), it left many in place and
added more quirks of its own.

--Brett Glass



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