[Info-vax] New CEO of VMS Software

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

On Sat, 6 Jan 2024 10:47:11 -0500, bill wrote:

> On 1/5/2024 9:38 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>
>> For what I mean by “workstation”, look at the capabilities of the Unix
>> workstations in the 1980s/1990s: remember, they ran the same OS as
>> their respective companies’ server offerings, with all the same
>> capabilities. It was Microsoft that came along and offered a
>> “Workstation” OS that had cut-
>> down capabilities compared to their “Server” offering, so they could
>> charge less for the former ... and more for the latter.
> 
> Not sure I agree with this at all.  It's been a long time and my memory
> may not be what it once was but I distinctly remember the only
> difference between NT Server and NT Workstation was Registry Settings.

You are remembering NT 3.51, I think it was, when somebody discovered 
that, indeed, all it took was a single Registry setting change to enable 
“Server” functionality on an NT “Workstation” installation.

Microsoft fixed that in the next version. Remember, it was not in their 
interests to allow this sort of thing to continue, given the significant 
difference in price between the two products.

So you see, on the Unix side, the vendors never thought to charge any 
different for the “workstation” versus “server” software, because it was 
the exact same software, with the exact same capabilities.

Today, the only OS in widespread use with this commonality of function 
across disparate hardware configurations is Linux.