Kevin Bowling <kevin.bowling(a)kev009.com> wrote:
I guess alternatively, what was interesting or neat,
about RFS, if
anything? And what was bad?
Good: Stateful implementation, remote devices worked.
Bad: Sent binary over the wire, making interoperability harder. Also,
at System V Relese 3 AT&T made the licensing terms much harder for
the big vendors to swallow (Dec, IBM, HP ...) so many of them didn't
bother. I don't remember the details; something like having to pass
a validation suite to be called "UNIX" and who knows what else.
As others have noted, the Unix wars were a sad, sad story, and I'd
as soon not see the details rehashed endlessly. But licensing was
a big factor in the non-adoption of RFS, not just the technical side.
Sigh.
Arnold