Microsoft Corp isn’t the only one out gunning to take over the Unix space. A group of Russian scientists at INEUM, understood to be Russia’s central agency for all computer technology below the mainframe, have been designing and writing code to out-Unix Unix for the last 10 years. They are building an operating system called Usix, under contract for a US start-up in Golden, Colorado called System Six Inc. Both the name of the code and the name of the company indicate they hope to fall heir to the Unix mantle. Ironically, Unix System Laboratories Inc is believed to be polishing a deal with Russia to get Unix System V.4 officially sanctioned on some level. What the INEUM-System Six Russians are said to have produced is a fully symmetric Unix-like multiprocessing real-time multi-user object-oriented microkernel compliant with the Unix System V.4 System V Interface Definition and Posix standards that runs in under 2Mb of memory with several users logged on. It is claimed to boot from a single floppy disk containing utilities such as ls, cp, mv and mount. The Russians, famed for their reverse engineering, have given System Six a contractual undertaking that Usix owes nothing to System V itself, that they have neither seen it nor used it, and are maintaining a clean room. Usix however promises to offer 100% binary compatibility with the System V.4.2/386 kernel. System Six claims that System V.4.2/386 shrinkwrapped packages that don’t require kernel-linked device drivers will execute on Usix without recompilation or modification in spite of the fact that Usix is internally different from System V.4 and not based on a licence from Unix Labs. Being free of Unix Labs code, and the taxes that go with it, will mean that System Six can attempt a new bundled pricing model with its first commercial release in October. According to sales and marketing vice-president Ron Baldwin, formerly Zenith Data Systems business development manager, System Six is tentatively considering listing a single-processor two-user system at $375 and single-processor multi-user system at $800. The MP system would go for a flat $2,400 list and cover an unlimited number of CPUs. Other functionality would be separately priced with TCP/IP costing $75, X Window $150, Network File System $250 and DOSix, its home grown Windows and MS-DOS applications translator, $100. The development system would be free except for reproduction rights which would cost $50. It intends to pursue multiprocessor and real-time OEM customers, and resellers, distributors and systems integrator. System Six says that it will not sell to the end user.
