The threatened dominance of the Microsoft Corp Windows interface once NT appears is pushing a lot of big names like IBM Corp, Hewlett-Packard Co, Digital Equipment Corp, Santa Cruz Operation Inc, SunSoft Inc, Novell Inc and Unix System Laboratories Inc toward standardising on some common look-and-feel features for Unix. Their joint efforts will be known collectively as CDE, the Common Desktop Environment. As reported briefly (CI No 2,115), initial agreement is expected to establish a standard for installing Unix software from within graphical user interfaces. The X/Open Co Ltd-compliant specification, known as the Distributed Format for Desktop Architecture, DFDA, and contributed by IXI Ltd, will provide a standard set of techniques for independent software vendors to write to, enabling users to get Unix applications up and running from an install icon within a variety of graphical environments without resort to shell commands. With the support of IBM and Hewlett-Packard now apparently secure – despite their other endeavours, see below – an announcement is expected at the UniForum show in a couple of weeks.
