4 Apr
2021
4 Apr
'21
10:08 p.m.
Josh Good writes:
Yes, it looks like in those years inferior Unix
vendors were playing a game
of lock-in with their customers, while Sun was playing the opposite game:
attracting users and developers with features, openness and by providing a
more joyful user/developer experience.
Yes, but weren't they also the first to unbundle the C compiler? Until
that point Sun had been doing a good job of elbowing out DEC where I
was working. When the C compiler went away we damned near mutinied
to become a wall-to-wall Ultrix shop (on the BSD side).
Personally, I think Sun's unbundling of C did more to launch the GNU
project into the mainstream than anything. Once gcc and binutils
became defacto on SunOS systems, GNU's future was set.
--lyndon