Big Guns Unite To Unify Unix

MikeDartt writes "Wired reports that Compaq has just joined IBM and SCO in Project Monterey, which is an attempt to get a single UNIX distro that will run on Merced. Perhaps I'm naive, but why get behind a new *NIX as well as Linux, esp. when the latter is both more open and more fashionable? "

Comments

why not just unify behind linux?

[FWMiller]

There are a number of reasons why UNIX vendors would not be unifying behind Linux as the "unified" UNIX.

1) These vendors have invested huge amounts of development effort in putting together their own implementations. They will not just walk away from their own design decisions because of Linux's rising market share.

2) Despite the increasing popularity of Linux, newer, high-performance commodity and custom hardware devices are driven by proprietary UNIX implementations first. This may be changing but it still has a ways to go before it changes (if it ever does IMHO).

3) Culturally, Linux is NIH (Not Invented Here). This may sound silly but its very pervasive and there are some convincing arguments why it will continue. The developers and customers for a given UNIX, even it they are closet Linux hackers, will take product to market with an in-house solution over Linux first because it has a critical mass within the organization that allows faster time to market.

4) Linux may incorporate many very modern OS features and implementation designs but other UNIX vendors will always believe, justified or not, they have a superior design. In such a case it may incumbent on Linux to adapt to their design rather than the other way around.

All of these factors may wane over time, but I doubt they will disappear completely. The short history of operating systems has never seen a single UNIX spec and I'm unconvinced it will happen now.


Later,
FM