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- Path: sparky!uunet!olivea!hal.com!decwrl!pa.dec.com!decuac!hussar.dco.dec.com!mjr
- From: mjr@hussar.dco.dec.com (Marcus J. Ranum)
- Newsgroups: comp.unix.ultrix
- Subject: Re: Ultrix 4.2A - going to die ?
- Keywords: ultrix
- Message-ID: <1992Aug21.142240.1157@decuac.dec.com>
- Date: 21 Aug 92 14:22:40 GMT
- References: <2313@inasys.UUCP>
- Sender: news@decuac.dec.com (USENET News System)
- Distribution: comp
- Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation, Washington ULTRIX Resource Center
- Lines: 39
- Nntp-Posting-Host: hussar.dco.dec.com
-
- >We knew about OSF/1 and DEC's statements to drop Ultrix development
- >and we also knew that DEC fired all Mips developers (is this really true ?
- >can't imagine they REALLY did this).
-
- ULTRIX is still undergoing stepped down development, and the MIPS
- developers are still developing stuff, though it's no lie that a lot more
- focus is probably being paid to Alpha based machines. A new release of
- ULTRIX is in the works (4.3) which will have some pretty nice enhancements.
-
- It's not dead yet, in other words. ;)
-
- >The question to us is: has DEC Ultrix any future or not ?
- >When OSF announced that they dropped OSF/1 development (did they or did
- >they not, nobody knows here in Germany ...)
-
- OSF didn't say they'd drop OSF/1 development, it was more like they
- admitted that they've been much more successful in the layered product
- arena than as an operating systems shop, and that they were going to focus
- on layered products more. Other than that, I can't say more, without going
- into wild opinions and speculations, but you can bet Digital is really
- serious about OSF/1 - it's the only UNIX we're planning to support on
- Alpha (though hopefully some hero of the revolution will port BSD4.4...)
-
- >If Ultrix is no longer updated, then support will die sometime in the
- >future, then we should better switch to OSF/1 as we need someone who
- >cares about bug fixing in our OS's.
-
- ULTRIX is still being updated and bug fixed at its usual pace.
- The transition from ULTRIX to OSF/1 is something Digital is very concerned
- about easing for our customers - your code should port pretty easily,
- unless you're doing lots of internals stuff.
-
- >But if OSF/1 is no longer developed by the OSF and DEC's version is too
- >unstable yet (remember the old Ultrix versions ...), what shall we do ???
-
- It's more stable than the old ULTRIX versions. I remember them
- well, and my stomach still writhes every time I do...
-
- mjr.
-