Neither firm seems to have made much of the revelation in the company’s ‘steady-as-she-goes’ pep talk last week, that Novell Inc has chosen Chorus Systemes SA’s microkernel over Mach for the basis of its integrated SuperNOS kernel, touted as the system upon which UnixWare and NetWare will co-exist. We understand that Novell has a prototype microkernel version of NetWare now that is up and running – though probably not the same beast that will feature in SuperNOS – and that work to integrate UnixWare 2.0 and Chorus is continuing. Novell is also working with Unisys Corp on a single-image for its microkernel system. Meanwhile, Unix Technology Group members are currently looking at how enterprise technology such as high availability can be fitted to a microkernel. Talking has continued, albeit intermittently, on the possibility of drumming up open application programming interfaces for all microkernels, so as to encourage independent software vendors and vendors to develop marketing strategies.
