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	Rex Ballard - Director of Electronic Distribution
	Standard & Poor's/McGraw-Hill
	Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect
	the Management of the McGraw-Hill Companies.
	http://cnj.digex.net/~rballard


On Wed, 3 Jul 1996, Todd Needham [Microsoft] wrote:

> Joe Sloan  wrote in article
> <4qfpos$fek@news.netvoyage.net>...
> > I think "scalability" is the buzzword Todd [Microsoft] claimed as
> > a special feature of windows nt, right?
> > 
> > Since Unix runs on everything from embedded controllers to 
> > supercomputers (and everything in between), It seems to me that
> > the scalability of windows nt is rather pathetic by comparison.
> > 
> > All of the other "special advantages" Todd [Microsoft] claimed
> > for windows nt likewise evaporate under close scrutiny.
> 
> Actually, Joe, we're back to that problem of interchanging "Linux" with
> "UNIX".  

Isn't it interesting to not how easily one can interchange the two.  I can
use the same commands, the same source code, the same languages, and even
the same "Look and Feel".  At the moment I'm on an "Ultrix" box, talking
to a Sun via a Unix Fire-Wall.  Tonight I'll go home to my 386sx and use
the same interface and commands at home.  It simplifies my job incredibly.

In fact, this workstation was a bit out of date, so I gave it a few apps
from my Linux CD-ROM.  Since I had the source code, it wasn't terribly
difficult.  I also get a bit cramped for display space (I'm monitoring
about 15 different systems that feed wall-street)  It's nice to be able to
kick up multiple displays on multiple workstations which are actually only
me operating from the appropriate host.

> The scalability issue under discussion was 'NT compared to Linux
> (not to all implementations of UNIX).  

If NT were a superset of VMS, you could make a case that you have
scalability over a much broader array of engines.  On the other hand, you
would still only have VMS.

The whole advantage (from the consumer viewpoint) and disadvantage (from
the vendor viewpoint) is that Unix is an entire infrastructure of publicly
defined standards, complete with reference models in source code.

The Linux kernel is different from SysVr4 UNIX, which is different from
OSF/1, which is different from BSD 4.4, which is different from AT&T
Version 7.  I can port old Version 7 code to run on my Linux box.  I can
also move much of my Linux code to BSD 4.3 or SunOS 3.0.

That which distinguishes each brand are extensions and supersets amounting
to around 1% of the overall system.  Even on systems like HP OSF/1,
unusual features are invisible to all but the kernel hacking wizard.

> SMP support in 'NT for over 175
> different multi-processor systems is a pretty significant advantage over
> Linux.

Linux does have limited SMP support.  But if I'm going to want high
performance SMP engines, why not just go to Pyramid and get a customized
Oracle engine, or SeQuent and get more fault tolerance, or get a Sun and
have better JAVA performance, or and AIX with it's optimal MVS and CMS
interfaces.  And of course there's that Digital Unix box that gives me
optimal access to the Vax Cluster.  I might even want to put SCO out in
the field like NASD does, not because it's so much better, but because I
can call SCO service and get better support.

With the exception of where the most significant byte goes, each isn't all
that different.  In fact, sometimes it's best to have several different
brands as "specialists".

Of course, if someone wants to learn a lot about the UNIX operating
system, I can just give them a copy of Linux.

> -Todd
> 
> 

	Rex



From rballard@cnj.digex.net Fri Jul  5 18:01:14 1996
Status: O
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Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy