In response to our story about the fate of the Common Desktop Environment specification (CI No 2,334), X/Open Co Ltd says base Common Desktop libraries were delivered to it at the end of last month and it expects the bulk of the revised specification to be delivered by the end of next month. This will be merged with XPG4 set 1, and once complete will go through the fast-track process. The specification will be reviewed over the summer, and is scheduled for delivery in the third quarter. First products are expected at the end of 1994 or the start of 1995. X/Open and the COSE firms will update their progress to date at UniForum to mark Common Desktop’s first birthday. However, nothing we hear from the development community suggests that certified products will be any less than a year behind original schedule – mid-1995. Until then, if vendors use test suites that are – or become – available, and abide by the conditions of the style guide, they should be able to deliver implementations they can claim are x% or y% Common Desktop-compliant.
