From cheshire@digital.net Mon Mar 8 07:20:16 1999 Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1998 17:50:37 -0400 (EDT) From: The Cheshire Catalyst Reply-To: cheshire@2600.com To: bcc: Subject: A Microsoft Moment If you have other good friends who get this, then you will recieve multiple copies. As this will undoubetdly become an Urban Legand, I wanted to be sure you got it. Keep Smiling, Cheshire ) Richard Cheshire http://digital.net/~cheshire The Cheshire Catalyst mailto:cheshire@2600.com -- >> This is a forward of a forward so I cannot speak for its validity, but >>it does sound like Microsoft. >>-Autobahn >> >>> I've been attending the USENIX NT and LISA NT (Large Installation Systems >>> Administration for NT) conference in downtown Seattle this week. >>> >>> One of those magical Microsoft moments(tm) happened yesterday and I thought >>> that I'd share. Non-geeks may not find this funny at all, but those in >>> geekdom (particularly UNIX geekdom) will appreciate it. >>> >>> Greg Sullivan, a Microsoft product manager (henceforth MPM), was holding >>> forth on a forthcoming product that will provide Unix style scripting and >>> shell services on NT for compatibility and to leverage UNIX expertise that >>> moves to the NT platform. The product suite includes the MKS (Mortise Kern >>> Systems) windowing Korn shell, a windowing PERL, and lots of goodies like >>> awk, sed and grep. >>> >>> It actually fills a nice niche for which other products (like the MKS >>> suite) have either been too highly priced or not well enough integrated. >>> >>> An older man, probably mid-50s, stands up in the back of the room and >>> asserts that Microsoft could have done better with their choice of Korn >>> shell. He asks if they had considered others that are more compatible with >>> existing UNIX versions of KSH. >>> >>> The MPM said that the MKS shell was pretty compatible and should be able to >>> run all UNIX scripts. >>> >>> The questioner again asserted that the MKS shell was not very compatible >>> and didn't do a lot of things right that are defined in the KSH language >>> spec. >>> >>> The MPM asserted again that the shell was pretty compatible and should work >>> quite well. >>> >>> This assertion and counter assertion went back and forth for a bit, when >>> another fellow member of the audience announced to the MPM that the >>> questioner was, in fact David Korn of AT&T (now Lucent) Bell Labs. >>> >>> (David Korn is the author of the Korn shell) >>> >>> Uproarious laughter burst forth from the audience, and it was one of the >>> only times that I have seen a (by then pink cheeked) MPM lost for words or >>> momentarily lacking the usual unflappable confidence. >>> >>> So, what's a body to do when Microsoft reality collides with everyone >>> elses? Next topic for demonstration, please...