Unix not the Only Place for "Vanguard" Applications

At 5:59 PM 7/15/95, Jon Lasser wrote:
>On Sat, 15 Jul 1995 an250888@anon.penet.fi wrote:
>
>> >In addition, now is the time to deploy stego, on a massive scale.
>> >How many stego programs have been released for Unix?
>>
>> Unix?  The masses use DOS, Windows, Mac, and OS/2.  All you Unix gurus
>> with nifty Unix crypto utilities that PC users can only wonder about
>> need to buy PC's and start porting now if you want to get anywhere.
>
>A legitimate point; however, the majority of PC users won't be in the
>vanguard of /anything/ -- it's not the nature of the PC industry.  If all
>the Unix folks do it, then the PC folks might.

I disagree with this, depending on what one's interpretation of "vanguard"
is, and for what products.

For example, I've been a Macintosh user since 1986, despite having worked
for Intel for 12 years prior to that. (Actually, I'm a fan of the Mac OS
and Way of Doing Things and don't care whether the main microprocessor is
Motorola, Intel, or Phlogistonics.)

For many years the most interesting--to me--applications came first on the
Macintosh, then on the PC, and then only occasionally to Unix machines.
Apps like PageMaker, Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Fractal Design Painter,
Eudora, MORE, and so forth. Things have changed recently, with Windows
getting the desirable apps a bit earlier than the Mac version. (The Mac
versions of the products above came first becuase of the obvious graphics
and user interface consistencies of the Mac, and the user community in
prepublication, journalism, and art environments. Writing for DOS in those
days was a real lose, because of the lack of a consistent set of standards
and toolbox calls...)

Only one program I use a lot came first on Unix boxes: FrameMaker. And
FrameMaker hit the Mac a few quarters after first appearing on Unix boxes,
around 1988 or so.

I'm not dismissing Unix boxes or Unix tools...they are obviously very
useful for running the Internet and the various tools that access it.
Enough said. (And SGI and Sun are doing pretty well. The "vanguard apps"
that run on these machines, including the well-known imaging apps, are not
things I use.)

But I think the point that PCs (and by extension, Macintoshes, which are a
flavor of PCs) are never in the vanguard is wrong. By my interpretation of
vanguard. (I expect a quibble, this being the Cypherpunks list, about
whether Jon meant "the majority of PC users won't be in the  vanguard of
/anything/ -- it's not the nature of the PC industry" to mean this...)

Frankly, Unix fragmented into a bunch of pieces. Maybe it was because of
the USL-Novell-AT&T-Sun-Unix International-etc. battles (I don't even
recollect who was who in this battle). Maybe it was the News vs. X vs.
OpenLook vs. NeXTStep vs. etc. user interface battles.

In any case, I expect Windows (and Windows NT) will take an ever-increasing
share of the market for at least the next several years. I'm hardly alone
in this expectation.

--Tim May

..........................................................................
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Frankly, Unix fragmented into a bunch of pieces. Maybe it was because of
   the USL-Novell-AT&T-Sun-Unix International-etc. battles (I don't even
   recollect who was who in this battle). Maybe it was the News vs. X vs.
   OpenLook vs. NeXTStep vs. etc. user interface battles.

Well, it looks like there will be a major Unix mainstream again
with two branches capable of more-or-less running each other's
binaries without too much pain: FreeBSD and Linux.

   In any case, I expect Windows (and Windows NT) will take an ever-increasing
   share of the market for at least the next several years. I'm hardly alone
   in this expectation.

BTW, I hear Linux can now run Windows 3.1 in its DOS box.

Phil

MS-Windows boxes and Macs still don't do multitasking well;  that's going
to change soon, and when it does, I'm sure that a lot of nifty new tools
well appear.  But multitasking is important if you want to run servers
(like remailers), and it's very helpful if you want to tie different
programs together (ie., elm talks to premail which starts pgp 5 times and
hands the result to sendmail, all without my noticing). 

The preeminence of unix in a lot of the work that's being done isn't the
result of snobbishness or even personal taste.  It's just a nice,
convenient platform to do the work on.  

People pick the tools they feel comfortable using, and they match them to
the job at hand.  I can't run Pagemaker on my linux box so if I need to do
some layout work I use a mac or ms-windows.  But if I want to set up a web
server I use linux because it's quick and cheap.  If you want to edit a
feature film, use an SGI workstation.  If you want to set up a word
processing system that someone from the temp service will be able to run,
use ms-windows and word.

I'm sure that when windows-95 comes out officially, good tools will appear
for that platform.  But the lack of solid multitasking and freely
available development tools in ms-windows 3.11 is the reason that more
robust crypto tools for that platform don't exist, not an ivory tower
mentality on the part of the people doing the work.

On Sat, 15 Jul 1995, Phil Fraering wrote:

>    Frankly, Unix fragmented into a bunch of pieces. Maybe it was because of
>    the USL-Novell-AT&T-Sun-Unix International-etc. battles (I don't even
>    recollect who was who in this battle). Maybe it was the News vs. X vs.
>    OpenLook vs. NeXTStep vs. etc. user interface battles.
> 
> Well, it looks like there will be a major Unix mainstream again
> with two branches capable of more-or-less running each other's
> binaries without too much pain: FreeBSD and Linux.
>
My sentiments in a way, you'll see some higher end PC users moving to 
this, plus the usual gammut of teenage hackers, like I was.
 
>    In any case, I expect Windows (and Windows NT) will take an ever-increasing
>    share of the market for at least the next several years. I'm hardly alone
>    in this expectation.
> 
> BTW, I hear Linux can now run Windows 3.1 in its DOS box.
> 
not completely, it can load it and some apps if you run it like you used 
to have to on a 286.  WINE is far from complete.  The thing is some major 
software compnies are actually taking initiative and making lInux native 
apps, like Wordperfect is coming out in Fall, and Matlab and Mathematica 
are either here already, or will be here in a month or so.  Alot fo 
commercial databases are coming to Linux too.

BUT, please PLEASE, let's not let this turn into a advocacy war, I hang 
out on those groups myself and get enough of them there, don't need it 
here.  I think we're all intelligent enough to realize that both platform 
bases have advantages and disadvantages.  I personally get a woody form 
anything that flips bits so I'm not about to argue.


"I regret that I have but six orifices to give you" -Nesta Stubbs
/-/ a s t e  http://www.mcs.net/~nesta/home.html Angeli Caduti Assasin