Open Software Foundation

[Nathaniel Mishkin]

In article <3166 at pdn.UUCP> reggie at pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach) writes:
>In article <5412 at bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> wesommer at athena.mit.edu (William Sommerfeld) writes:
>>NEW YORK, N.Y., May 17, 1988---Seven leading computer companies today
>>announced an international foundation to develop and provide a
>>completely open software environment to make it easier for customers
>>to use computers and software from many vendors.
>
>     Huh?   How does creating an alternative standard help do that?
>Look at some of the areas of "standardization", like graphics standards,
>pick one.
>
>
>AT&T and Sun are taking a step that should have been taken years
>ago.  It is exactly what the marketplace needs.  And who better to do
>it than those who drive the development of the two main strains?
>I don't think we want this done by a committee.  On the other hand
>one can see the Hamilton Group's problem with this.  They do not want
>to have to play catch up all the time.  But in reality, isn't that
>what they are doing anyway?  None of those companies has the ability
>to effect changes to System V or SunOS (BSD) at the current time.  Why
>should Sun and AT&T allow them to in the future?

Let me state up front that the following are *my* opinions, and not those
of Apollo Computer, for whom I happen to work:

With my simple engineer hat on, I can see how the AT&T/Sun Unix
collaboration has (had?) a lot going for it.  Unifying Unix (especially
the BSD and System V derivative) is clearly a desirable thing.  The problem
is the way in which the unification was happening.  There are two aspects
to this:  First, getting System V Release 3 (and presumably later releases)
requires companies to sign a fairly (shall we say) "heavyweight" contract
obliging the companies to do all sorts of things.  The set of "things"
is not necessary stable either (i.e. they could be different and Release
4), thus making a company's long-term planning rather hard.  As a result,
it's not clear that all companies could or would sign onto later System
V releases, making the issue of unification moot.

A second aspect to the problem with the way the unification was happening
was that no one other than Sun or AT&T appeared to have any opportunity
to have input into the process.  I'm not asking for votes, or committees,
or stuff like that.  I'm just talking about AT&T saying that they'd at
least listen to and consider ideas that didn't originate at AT&T and
Sun.  I think they have lots of bright people, but they're not *that*
bright and they don't have a corner on the market of good ideas.

Now admittedly, the foregoing is something of a vendor's point of view.
But I have to believe that ultimately these things that are bad for
vendors end up being bad for end users.  Do end users want to put the
nature of future software into the hands of a particular set of vested
interests?  Do end users really want to see the set of computer vendors
reduced because all but two are put at the disadvantage of getting the
latest software at a 6-12 month lag?

>     There are too many standardization groups out there anyway.  Sun
>and AT&T are *doing* something about the problem right now.  Look at
>how long the ANSI C effort is taking and that is just one group.  All
>of the UNIX-related standardization groups will have to get together
>sometime and converge on a single standard.

The intention (at least) is that OSF *not* be a standardization committee.
OSF is a not-for-profit software company that will make open decisions
based upon input from a wide variety of inputs.  They will integrate
existing software (some of which will come from the OSF sponsors) and
write software from scratch if they have to.  Further, it is my
understanding that, contrary to comments otherwise, at least some software
that OSF distributes will be subject to licenses created by organizations
other than OSF.  (Although presumably OSF will not distribute software
subject to the kind of "heavyweight" licenses currently associated with
System V Release 3.)

I don't think anyone knows how this will work out for sure, but I think
it's worth a shot.  I'd rather place the state of my future software
into the hands of an organization structured along the lines of OSF than
into the hands of for-profit companies that have already at least partially
closed the door on outside input.
-- 
                    -- Nat Mishkin
                       Apollo Computer Inc.
                       Chelmsford, MA
                       {decvax,mit-eddie,umix}!apollo!mishkin