Conference 7.286::digital

    That rates up there with the "H*LL HAS OUR NUMBER" advertisement.
    
    Now all we need to do is change all of the documents out there with 
    OSF/1, change all of the part number titles, etc...
    
    Why didn't we JUST save some time and money in the first place and just
    call it Digital UNIX?

    Re .0: 
    
    Obviously brought to us by the same innovative folks who gave
    us "OpenVMS"!

Because we couldn't.  USL (jointly owned by AT&T and Sun) initially had full
rights to the UNIX trademark.  Novell then purchased USL and then gained 
ownership of the trademark.  Novell then gave X/Open the ability to license the
trademark to vendors who pass a test (initially referred to Spec 1170, now
called X/Open UNI 93).

The only products that could (before now) be called were either developed
by Sun/AT&T or derived from their codebase (SVR3 or SVR4).  The licensing
fees (note that these are on a per-vendor basis and Digital's were sky-high)
for SVR3 or SVR4 were so out-of-line that Digital could not afford to license
the UNIX trademark.

Which is why we've had ULTRIX, then DEC OSF/1, and now we have Digital UNIX.

  Why?

  Well, there was the slight problem that "OSF/1" was *EXPLICITLY
  NOT* Unix! It was designed in a "clean-room" environment to be
  Unix compatible without a single scrap of Unix source code in it.
  This was to allow its use without licensing stuff from ATT/USL/
  whatever_succesor_organization_ended_up_owning_Unix.

  The folks who owned the Unix trademark at the time were therefore
  not inlined to allow it to be called "Unix".

  Things have now changed.

                                   Atlant

    We're doing this name change in a far better fashion than the
    OpenVMS change, though unlike VMS, OSF/1 didn't have two platforms
    to worry about (and that was a large part of the confusion).
    
    Digital UNIX is ok.  It makes sense and is being communicated well.
    
    				Steve

    Listen,
    
    Let's just give the OSF/1, eh, Unix, eh, digital Unix, Eh, Open butt 
    kicking Unix, Marketing People a chance to screw up their identity that 
    they've been building for 3 whole years after that little Ultrix fiasco....
    
    They learn quicker than the OpenVMS Marketing People.. It took them 
    12 years to screw up their market identity and confuse the public and
    our installed base...
    
    Next week let's change the name to Linux next so people will think we 
    have 3 million installs.. or maybe VMS, that way our installed base will
    think we've really turned everything around again... or I know, 
    
    Let's just call OSF/1 "You really don't have to kick our butt, We'll 
    do it to ourselves UNIX"
    
    Now there's a catchy name...
    
    John W.
    
    PS. I once read a fortune in the back of a bubble-gum card:
    
    "You don't have to out kick a one-legged-man in a butt-kicking 
     contest, you just have to let him go first..."
    
    

    re: .all
    
    I liked the ad because it's in-your-face, it poked fun, and it still
    got across the point that we changed the name.
    
    Keep watchin', I hear that one of the next ones goes after HP.
    
    Mark

    
    I think we should call OpenVMS, OSF/1 now, and just have the default
    CLI be POSIX.  :)

I'm glad we can finally use the UNIX name.  Now if we'd just stop this silly
'Digital' stuff, we might get somewhere.

Bob

    The funny thing I can't quite figure out is that a partial reason for
    the name change was to make our UNIX appear more open.  I believe this
    was mentioned in the Digital Today article which trumpeted the name
    change.  BTW, did you notice that right below the article saying we
    have changed the name from OSF/1 to DIGTAL UNIX, there was an article
    talking about the latest release of OSF/1.
    
    I guess the two authors didn't talk to each other.
    
    I don't see how calling something DIGITAL ... makes it sound more open,
    unless it was the fact that now we also have the word UNIX in the name.
        
    Ken

    After fifteen years of putzing around, we've *finally* come out with
    operating system software called UNIX -- while it may not help, it
    might finally stop the "DEC's UNIX is proprietary -- and closed"
    perception.
    
    Also, with compliance to the X/Open UNI 93 specification, at least
    there was a *reason* for changing the name.  Whether the UNIX name
    change loses us as much name recognition as the VMS/OpenVMS change
    remains to be seen.
    
    					andrew

    In one of the newsgroups someone was asking if Digital UNIX was not
    just another name for Dultrix ..

    Evidently the people who wanted to name it
    
    		DecOpenOsfPolyUnixUltrixWorks
    
    are no longer in the majority.  This is a good sign and, IMHO, may be
    the first one that the company is *really* turning the corner.
    
    								Tex

    
    	Personally I like the Hell out of the ad. Now if Digital itself
    could get just as loose and irreverent....
    
    
    
    
    	still my beating heart
    
    	
                the Greyhawk
    
    			

    Well it beats the heck out of "Advantage-UNIX" which I gather was a
    real contender. 
    
    As for the Dultrix thread in comp.sys.dec take it with a grain of salt.
    The jist of the original post was "it doesn't matter what you 
    call it; if it's UNIX it's ****" this person was dropped on their head
    a few times as a baby and I think everybody realized that.  

    
    
    
    A reporter at Byte magazine said he wanted to test VMS because he'd
    heard that we planned to get UNIX certification for it.
    
    Any truth?  Is VMS going to be UNIX compliant?
    What does this do to product positioning?
    
    To use a line from the old Bob Newheart Show; 
    
    	This is my brother Darrell and this is my other brother Darrell
    
    (replace Darrell w/ UNIX)
    
    

    re .16
    
    There is no UNIX certification. There is POSIX certification. VMS
    adheres to the highest level of POSIX certification (a large number of
    tests run against things like API's) of any proprietary operating
    system. It was more compliant than OSF/1 - doubt if that is still true.
    
    It just means that it is an "open operating system". An open system
    does not mean UNIX, it means that code written within the operating
    system environment can be easily ported to another open system because
    they have both adhered to the same interface, etc. standards.
    
    So we have been trying to say that VMS is OPEN but NOT that VMS is
    UNIX.

    Bzzzt... Survey says, you need to keep current. 
    
    These days there is such a thing as UNIX certification, handed out by
    X/Open. Very similar to (might be replacing??) the XPG branding. As
    such it's quite possible that we could certify OpenVMS with X/Open and 
    call it UNIX. Doing the former makes sense and probably will actually 
    happen, doing the latter would be just plain stupid.
    
    Without doing a great deal of work in setting expectations correctly
    giving a magazine a VMS system and letting them test it as a UNIX
    system is potentially very dangerous, even with a magazine that likes
    us like Byte. Not to say we shouldn't do it just that it has to be
    carefully managed. 

  "Hey, are you using the c shell?"

  "Nahh, this is that brand new dClshell!"

                                   Atlant

    "Could you explain that three shell thing?"
    
    	... Stallone in "Demolition Man"

  What's one more shell among friends? Consider:

  "Hey, are you using the c shell?"

  "Nahh, this is that brand new *D* shell!"


  Interesting side note: Given that the C language followed the B
  language, Ritchie, et. al. once speculated publicly as to whether
  their next language would be called "D" or "P".  You get 10 geek-
  points if you know why "P" might even be in consideration.

                                   Atlant

    
    P = Portable
    
    Shows the UNIX (tm) gurus even then had a real sense of humour ;-)
    
    
    		the Greyhawk

re: .21

>  Interesting side note: Given that the C language followed the B
>  language, Ritchie, et. al. once speculated publicly as to whether
>  their next language would be called "D" or "P".  You get 10 geek-
>  points if you know why "P" might even be in consideration.


From BCPL, perhaps?

-Hal

> You get 10 geek-points if you know why "P" might even 
> be in consideration.

Of course, you're only allowed to hand out geek points
that you already possess...

  Sorry, Greyhawk, but the points go to Hal!

  Before there was "C", there was "B".

  And before there was "B", there was...

  ..."BCPL".
                                   Atlant

| Of course, you're only allowed to hand out geek points
| that you already possess...

Are you suggesting that there is a fixed number of geek units in the world
and then are sort of handed down, from generation to generation?

No - on death, your geek-pool quota returns to wherever
you got it from, or ultimately to 'init'.

In my previous existance, the authos of BCPL tried to sell me on the 
concept - even offered the sources.

Me, being at the time a Fortran Bigot, turned it down....

Alan

Alan:

Bad, (nay, awful!) pun alert


  You probably told them, "Hey, I'm no Dummy (parameter), get REAL!
  IF I traded FORTRAN for BCPL, I'd never know what to DO! How could
  I CONTINUE?"

  But let it be READ that that if you could reWRITE history, you'd
  probably GO TO their language; doing anything else wouldn't be
  LOGICAl, and, anyway, FORTRAN got awfully COMPLEX, but back then,
  people just couldn't see the full DIMENSIONs of the problem.

  (I'd better STOP now before I END my career.)

                                   Atlant

    
    
>No - on death, your geek-pool quota returns to wherever
>you got it from, or ultimately to 'init'.
    
    If your quota doesn't get returned, do you have
    a geek-leak????
    
    Jim
    
    

RE: .28

Old sources never die, they just hide away...

--------------------
SECTION "SYN"

GET "SYNHDR.BCPL"

LET NEWVEC(N) = VALOF          // allocate node for AE tree, used
                               // by LIST1, LIST2,...
    $(  TREEP := TREEP - N - 1
        IF TREEP <= TREEVEC THEN CAEREPORT(-6)
        RESULTIS TREEP  $)
//
//
//  The versions of LISTn are different from the original
//  in that these all have the parameter LN standing for
//  linenumber,  it is used to stash the linenumber of the
//  lexical element which is driving the creation of the AE node.
//  The linenumbers are then available for the
//  pass 2 routines(TRNA,TRNB) when generating error messages
//
//   This change also required changing the manifests for H1,H2,...
//  in the files SYNHDR and TRNHDR
//
AND LIST1( LN, X) = VALOF
    $( LET P = NEWVEC(1)
       P!ERRL := LN
       P!H1 := X
       RESULTIS P  $)

AND LIST2( LN, X, Y) = VALOF
     $( LET P = NEWVEC(2)
        P!ERRL, P!H1, P!H2 := LN, X, Y
        RESULTIS P   $)

AND LIST3( LN, X, Y, Z) = VALOF
     $( LET P = NEWVEC(3)
        P!ERRL, P!H1, P!H2, P!H3 := LN, X, Y, Z
        RESULTIS P     $)

...

    Actually, the direct predecessor to C was NB (for New B).  NB was of
    course derived from B which was derived from BCPL.
    
    (this is a common Unix trivia question).

Back to the original topic...

It is correct to say that today there is a UNIX certification, handed out by
X/Open. And yes, it is very similar to the XPG branding, even if I don't 
think it will ever replace it (as XPG4 did not replace POSIX certification).

At the moment, anyway, there are not plans of certifying OpenVMS with UNIX
specifications.

I agree that it can be dangerous to have OpenVMS tested as a UNIX system 
without a correct marketing effort.
This is an error that must be avoided also today, when the current POSIX for
OpenVMS interface is compared with native UNIX systems.

	Vittorio

	POSIX for OpenVMS Product Management