> > > This is a crucial point. First, I think more vendors will come out
> > > with NT firewalls, due to market pressure.
> > Absolutely, but since their primary platform is (with very few exceptions)
> > UNIX, it's the NT versions that are trailing... not the UNIX ones.
> Agreed, but when the vendor considers an *Intel* platform, it is more
> likely to choose NT over UNIX.
You think? I think that if the vendor chooses a *UNIX* platform they are
just as likely to choose Intel for one of their ports. If they choose an
NT platform they're unlikely (except for Raptor) to pick anything but Intel.
And, of course, the relative abundance of UNIX based products supports that.
> Imagine for a second you're a firewall developer, and you have a
> version of your product for the "mandatory" platforms: RISC Solaris,
> HP-UX, AIX, Digital. What next? Intel support. What are the options:
> NT, BSD/OS, FreeBSD, NetBSD, Linux, SCO UNIX, Solaris for Intel, ...
> What would you choose?
UNIX, since if I'm not a total idiot the Digital UNIX port I've already
got will drop right into place on BSDI. Digital UNIX is 4.3 reno with
the scheduler and VM system replaced by Mach, which is very close to what
BSDI did in completing the 4.4-lite port. In fact at the Usenix course
on 4.4BSD internals Mike and Kirk both mentioned that Digital UNIX was
the closest one to their design, and my own OSF/1 internals work supports
that.
For an NT port they'd have to pretty much start over from scratch. What
fun. Think what that'll do to their time-to-market. And since the Firewall
is a dedicated box, why take the hit?
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