[AUUG-Talk]: Conference Update

[Leon Brooks]

On Tuesday 25 September 2007 20:24:23 Dave Horsfall wrote:
>> Unfortunately the AUUG constitution requires that any funds
>> left as dissolution go to an organisation with similar aims &
>> objectives. LA is not that, as it does not promote Unix.

Hmmm.

In concept, that would be like the Seventh-day Adventist Church
offering Sunday services in pace of Sabbath, or the Jehovah's
Witnesses (Watchtower Society) publishing Papal letters. (-:

In reality, you can visit any LCA & see Macs (OS X is a kind of
Unix) & the odd Free/Net/OpenBSD machine scattered about
the place. All brothers in spirit (see below).

LA also stands directly in the line of fire for FOSS principles,
& while Unix isn't exactly FOSS in nature, it has a long-standing
culture which cobbles together quick shell-scripts & the like,
Lego(tm)-fashion, from the many available components (with
memorable names like sed, gawk, grep... & shares them about.

This in its own way is more Unix than Unix. Unix in spirit/heart
rather than Unix in licence form.

> Correct; they promote a Windoze replacement, complete with
> glitzy & useless Gooey that's attractive to the drooling masses.

Hmmm. The Ubuntu I'm facing sports GNOME by default, which
doesn't look at all like MS-Windows. In fact, it looks more like Mac
than any other mainstream interface.

I also use Mandriva (nee Mandrake) a fair bit, which is KDE by
default, & if the watcher isn't paying any attention they could
mistake that for MS-Windows. Just. OTOH, If I set it up, they'd
have to be clinically blind to make that mistake. (-:

"By default" means that you can default your login to the other
WM, or to something completely different like XFCE. Or, using
Ctrl-Alt-F#, you can have several WMs running at once. Or the
latest Mandriva (2007.1) can show off a 3D display manager
which runs several WM's on 3D-swappable panes.

> Or have we already forgotten the early competitors to Unix?
> The list is legion: RSX-11/M, RSX-11/D, RSTS-E, VMS, Pick...

Today, Pick is just a multi-value database called D3, sold by
a company name RainingData -- & yes, it runs under Linux, too.

RSX-11-M-PLUS did a number of Unixy flavoured things at a low
level, and VMS's DCL tried to be a Unix shell at a higher level
(& was in reality more of a CoBOL trying to be a LISP
replacement, hi Major :-).

As to "retiring the old girl" I think something more along the
lines of Greyfriar's Bobby's statue & legend is in order. (-:

Cheers; Leon