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From: "Dennis McCunney" <mccunney AT bellatlantic DOT net>
To: <cygwin AT cygwin DOT com>
Subject: RE: ksh93? -- also u/win question
Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2001 00:01:33 -0500
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: cygwin-owner AT sources DOT redhat DOT com
> [mailto:cygwin-owner AT sources DOT redhat DOT com]On Behalf Of
> Christopher Faylor
> Sent: 2001. February 7. 23:02
> To: Cygwin
> Subject: Re: ksh93? -- also u/win question
>
> > The slashdot piece was interesting, but I had to
> > disagree with a number of his points.  Especially
> > the bits about uwin versus cygwin.  Uwin has lots
> > of clever ideas, but it's executed very poorly.
> > It's been extremely unstable in my experience.  I
> > downloaded version 2.25 of it around a week ago to
> > see if it had improved, and promptly trashed it.
> > Cygwin all the way, baby.
>
> I'm glad to hear that.

I DL'ed it a while back.  I once worked for a systems house that was an AT&T
reseller, back when AT&T still made computers.  Great technology, and no
clue about marketing.

I got reminded of that when I DLed U/Win -- though I was quite careful about
how I filled out the questionnaire you must complete before you can DL, I
didn't get the "free-for-non-commercial-use" version, I got a thirty day
trial version that was _already_ expired.  I had a lot of fun filling out
their "What do you think of the product?" follow-up survey.  I'm not sure I
was responsible, but the _next_ time I DLed it, I didn't have a problem...

It installed with no trouble, and seems to work, save for the Control Panel
applet, but I haven't had a chance to look at it closely.

> Can you give an example of some of the clever ideas in uwin?
> I know that they have some sort of setuid daemon or something
> like that but it has been a while since I really investigated
> U/WIN.

The main thing of interest is that Global Technologies, Ltd, the commercial
liscensing outfit that sells supported commercial versions of U/WIN, has
successfully ported GNOME to it.  They claim it took under two weeks to port
4 million lines of code, and less than one hundred lines of source changes
were required.

Unfortunately, it _won't_ run under the "free-for-non-commercial-use"
version of U/Win -- GTL apparently had to make some U/WIN compatibility
fixes that haven't been folded back into the master AT&T Research sources
yet.  You need an X-server and the trial version of the commercial edition
of U/WIN to play with it.  (I have no idea if XFree86 will work - they
mention Hummingbrid Exceed and WRQ Reflections.)

Go to http://www.gtlinc.com/gnome-desktop.html for information.

> Since I have to come up with a roadmap for Cygwin at some
> point, it might be nice to know where another product has gone
> so that I could shamelessly steal some ideas.
>
> I thought that it was interesting that David Korn said that
> U/WIN may soon be open sourced.

Ksh is, so U/WIN is a logical successor.  They may be adopting the "make the
code and the product free, sell service and support" model.  I suspect the
answers to the "would you _buy_ this as a commercial product, and what would
you pay for it?" questions on thier survey were discouraging.

> cgf
_________________________
Dennis McCunney
mccunney AT bellatlantic DOT net


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