Microsoft and the release threadmill

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< From bradsi Mon Feb 3 18:32:47 1992 To: bradc; mackm; richt Cc: dividcol; johnlu; richf; russs Subject: RE: borland and dri

Date: Mon, 03 Feb 92 18:30:05 PST

yes, we need to get together to discuss. i agree that we don't want to negatively affect msdos6. but realistically, msdos6 is still quite a way off. we need to have a close look at it, too, to see what's essential and what's not. i presume msdos won't be until mid-to-late '93. i don't see how we can hold the fort with msdos 5.0

until then. if dri was smart, they'd put us on a release treadmill. get some new utils, call it 6.5. get a new round of reviews. do it again 6-9 months later. each round of review would say, dri was already ahead, now they are further ahead. once you lose a lot of ground it is very very hard to pick it up. we need to stop losing ground while making progress towards the ultimate "major leap" msdos6. clearly the trick is to not make kernel changes and just add bought utils.

Full Exhibit
http://boycottnovell.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/px04499.pdf