OSF/1 MK-AD, the microkernel version of the Open Software Foundation’s operating system based on Carnegie-Mellon University’s Mach technology, will be available from October. Intel Corp’s Scientific Computer Division is expected to be first to market in December, with an installation at Oak Ridge National Laboratories in Tennessee. OSF/1 MK, already available as a snapshot, was being shown last week at the Unix Expo show in New York by IBM Corp, which is also to use the Mach microkernel in a future version of OS/2. IBM has been trying to negotiate a deal with the Open Software Foundation to buy outright re-distribution rights to an OSF/1 single server running under Mach 3.0 on PS/2s. The company complains that the Foundation’s price list is meant for higher end machines and that it is muttering something about large volumes. The technology may also form the core of a specialised network server, with IBM expected to ship a Mach 3.0 implementation next year. It’s also rumoured to be interested in a single server version of OSF/1 running under Mach as a personality.
