xxii Preface Our story started when the economics of computing began marching us, one by one, into the Unix Gulag. We started passing notes to each other. At first, they spoke of cultural isolation, of primitive rites and rituals that we thought belonged only to myth and fantasy, of depravation and humilia- tions. As time passed, the notes served as morale boosters, frequently using black humor based upon our observations. Finally, just as prisoners who plot their escape must understand the structure of the prison better than their captors do, we poked and prodded into every crevice. To our horror, we discovered that our prison had no coherent design. Because it had no strong points, no rational basis, it was invulnerable to planned attack. Our rationality could not upset its chaos, and our messages became defeatist, documenting the chaos and lossage. This book is about people who are in abusive relationships with Unix, woven around the threads in the UNIX-HATERS mailing list. These notes are not always pretty to read. Some are inspired, some are vulgar, some depressing. Few are hopeful. If you want the other side of the story, go read a Unix how-to book or some sales brochures. This book won’t improve your Unix skills. If you are lucky, maybe you will just stop using Unix entirely. The UNIX-HATERS History The year was 1987, and Michael Travers, a graduate student at the MIT Media Laboratory, was taking his first steps into the future. For years Travers had written large and beautiful programs at the console of his Sym-

The UNIX-HATERS History xxiii bolics Lisp Machine (affectionately known as a LispM), one of two state- of-the-art AI workstations at the Lab. But it was all coming to an end. In the interest of cost and efficiency, the Media Lab had decided to purge its LispMs. If Travers wanted to continue doing research at MIT, he discov- ered, he would have to use the Lab’s VAX mainframe. The VAX ran Unix. MIT has a long tradition of mailing lists devoted to particular operating systems. These are lists for systems hackers, such as ITS-LOVERS, which was organized for programmers and users of the MIT Artificial Intelli- gence Laboratory’s Incompatible Timesharing System. These lists are for experts, for people who can—and have—written their own operating sys- tems. Michael Travers decided to create a new list. He called it UNIX- HATERS: Date: Thu, 1 Oct 87 13:13:41 EDT From: Michael Travers mt To: UNIX-HATERS Subject: Welcome to UNIX-HATERS In the tradition of TWENEX-HATERS, a mailing list for surly folk who have difficulty accepting the latest in operating system technol- ogy. If you are not in fact a Unix hater, let me know and I’ll remove you. Please add other people you think need emotional outlets for their frustration. The first letter that Michael sent to UNIX-HATERS included a well-rea- soned rant about Suns written by another new member of the Unix Gulag: John Rose, a programmer at a well-known Massachusetts computer manu- facturer (whose lawyers have promised not to sue us if we don’t print the company’s name). Like Michael, John had recently been forced to give up a Lisp Machine for a computer running Unix. Frustrated after a week of lost work, he sent this message to his company’s internal support mailing list: