Subject: Re: HPC port?
To: None <current-users@NetBSD.ORG, perry@piermont.com>
From: Ty Sarna <tsarna@endicor.com>
List: current-users
Date: 12/17/1997 18:21:56
In article <199712171629.LAA07729@jekyll.piermont.com> you write:
> Adam Glass writes:
> > A second option would be to port NetBSD to Win32 so that it runs as a
> > process (or series of processes) under Win32.
> 
> Some of us have a personal, irrational desire not to run Windows
> code. This, thus, will not provide us with personal satisfaction.

On the other hand, if one has to run Windows code anyway, having a
NetBSD subsystem could make it more comfortable.  I don't know that
there is significant information availible (without NDA) to do that,
though. 

Heck, even if it IS availible, NDA or not, you may never be able to find
out who to ask.  I've been trying for *ages* to get information on the
format of "docfiles" (OLE container files).  It's not that NDA is
unacceptable (it's fine for my application, and I already have other
information related to the project under NDA from MS).  It's not that
they refuse to allow me to have it under NDA.  It's that MS can't even
tell me *WHO AT MS TO ASK FOR THAT INFORMATION!* AAAGGH! Every query
ends up unanswered, referred to expensive phone support (who I fear, not
without reason, will charge me $95 to tell me "sorry, that information
isn't availible" wether it is or not, or just "we don't know"), or
referred to other people who don't know.  It's truly maddening!

[Anyone with an understanding of MS internal organization (adamg?) who
can help me with this would earn my gratitude, or even better, I could
send them a coupla pizzas :-)]

Not that other companies are just as bad.  Canon is, plus there's the
language barrier.  And I know of one large-sales-volume HP product where
there are no engineering documents at all.  The entirety of the
company's undertsanding of the software and hardware of the system is
contained in the grey matter of probably a half dozen people.  What
happens if these half dozen people all go out to lunch together and get
hit by a runaway bus or something, I don't know.  (Or just all leave the
company at once, for that matter.) Reverse engineer their own product?
Scrap it and tell existing customers "sorry"? I expect that from small
companies, who usually have no choice (I mean, if we lost half a dozen
people, that'd be more than the entire company :->), but HP should be
able to do better.  They should know better, too...  the project manager
didn't seem to think this was a problem.  Desesiring internal
documentation of a project but not being able to afford to do it right
is one thing.  In these days of downsizing, reducing overhead, etc,
there are business realities to contend with.  But failing to see even
the point of *any* internal documentation is just completely...  <words
fail me>. 

Oops... Um, I seem to be ranting.

Er, anwyay...  regardless about how one feels about the "morality" (for
lack of a more appropriate word) of running NetBSD under an MS OS, for
an HPC port, I'd think the memory constraints would pretty much render
those concerns moot. Is there even room for a useful NetBSD system, let
alone NetBSD and Windows?