Question for net.views column in UNIX Today!

[David Lowe]

Re: Is a single GUI standard really necessary?


Yes.  The competition between Motif and Open Look is destroying the
development of the Unix software market.  Most university sites have
just washed their hands of the whole thing and use neither interface.
The complexity of developing for both Motif and Open Look is a
tremendous waste of effort, and it is causing most developers to
put off development until the situation clears up.  If there was an
agreement on standards, it would open up a huge new market as there
are so many programmers who are trained in using Unix.  Development
of interfaces in the University environment is stalled because we
are faced with 3 choices (Athena widgets, Motif, Open Look).

I can hardly believe that Sun, which did so much to start the open
systems movement, is now doing everything it can to force its own
interface onto its customers.  Sun is still the hardware of choice
for universities, but whenever I visit other universities I hear
nothing but anger at Sun's refusal to adopt the same interface that
was selected by other major manufacturers.  It is behaving in the
way that IBM used to, and this will cost it dearly in the long run.
At the moment, it is being just successful enough to thoroughly
confuse its own users and make them avoid adopting any GUI.

Note that by posting your message to the net, you will get a very
biased sample of opinion.  It will come from those people who least
need a graphical user interface and who are most likely to be writing
their own software rather than buying commercial products.

  David Lowe
  Assistant Professor, Computer Science
  (604) 228-3170