[Info-vax] Anyone interested in another public access system

[Bill Gunshannon]

In article <9Iqdnf8RcM-4JH3UnZ2dnUVZ_iydnZ2d at giganews.com>,
	"Richard B. Gilbert" <rgilbert88 at comcast.net> writes:
> sapienzaf wrote:
>> On Apr 11, 9:32 am, billg... at cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) wrote:
>>> Actually,
>>> there is a standard for what an OS should provide.  It's called POSIX.
>>> Which OS come closer?
>>>
>> 
>> The POSIX standard is a set of features that Unix-like operating
>> systems should provide, and not a standard for the design of any
>> operating system in general.
>> 
>> POSIX = "Portable Operating System Interface for Unix".  Note the "for
>> Unix" part of the acronym.  That hardly establishes it as "a standard
>> for what an OS should provide", in the general sense of your
>> statement.
>> 
>> Though I haven't confirmed it, according to some sources many of the
>> open-source Unix-like operating systems aren't fully POSIX compliant.
>> GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD are on the not-fully-compliant
>> list.
>> 
>> You should do the research yourself to answer the question "which OS
>> comes closer".  You'll have to provide a comparison of the compliant
>> and non-compliant features of OpenVMS (with the POSIX libaries
>> installed) versus any particular distribution of Linux or whichever
>> Unix variant you have in mind.  I'm sure it will be informative for
>> all of us to see the results of your research.
> 
> Even POSIX, at least on VMS, does not automagically make it possible to 
> build and run Unix software.  I once tried to build NTP from source on 
> VMS+POSIX.  It couldn't even run the configure script!
 
That is probably because at its best VMS was never more than minimaly
POSIX compliant.

bill

-- 
Bill Gunshannon          |  de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n.  Three wolves
billg999 at cs.scranton.edu |  and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton   |
Scranton, Pennsylvania   |         #include <std.disclaimer.h>