OSF joins AT&T

[Charles L Ditzel]

in article <5072 at vdsvax.steinmetz.ge.com>, barnett at vdsvax.steinmetz.ge.com (Bruce G. Barnett) says:
> Don't hold your breath.
> 
> Remember, the sponsors are under no obligation to use ANY of the
> software that OSF generates/licenses.
> 
> I can't believe DEC is ever going to switch to a brand new kernal.
> They may use pieces of it. But they have too much effort in Ultrix
> to give it up.
> 
> Also - I doubt DEC will use HP's New Wave or OPEN LOOK, if OSF decides
> on one of them as the standard UI.
> 
> This points out one of the problems I have with OSF. There is no real
> unified direction. Sponsors are submitting new and nifty pieces of
> technology. If people want to license it, fine.

Precisely! There is no unified direction to OSF...Pampel when he was
at Apollo and lately Olsen of DEC both have stated that there will
still be multiple versions of Unix within the OSF community...Olsen
stated in Digital News : "Our Unix is going to be proprietary. Proprietary
not to be vicious; proprietary because it is going to be so good.  We're
so sure we can do better than anybody else." [A more complete interview
is included within the magazine]  

As for user interface - I can't imagine a lot of the OSF companies adopting
say Open Look or DECwindows...especially after having invested so much into
their own solutions.  ...especially now with the rumors flying think
about the IBM-NeXT connection... can you imagine IBM adopting DECwindows
if they just have forked over $X million for NeXT's interface ?
(Not too many stranger things have happened :-)

I think it's great to have all this software submitted and licensable...
...but as for setting a Unix or user interface standard...i kind of 
doubt it.
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My Opinions are my own not my employers.