The old Apache Group, which is now less fetchingly styled the MIPS/System V.4 Special Interest Group or M/SIG, can start breathing a little easier now that fears of MIPS Computer Systems Inc kidnapping its application binary interface and defining it to its own advantage, are beginning to subside. In fact, you might say that it has MIPS right where it wants it laying on its back and purring like a kitten. In the wake of the last M/SIG meeting in Phoenix, Arizona, MIPS is promising to make its Risc/OS operating system fully Unix System V.4-compliant. What is more, it is promising to put its back into getting the group’s applications binary interface accepted in the outside world. It is putting together an independent software vendor programme, valued at between $1m and $2m, supplying some 160 MIPS machines and technical support to software houses. Furthermore, it is guaranteeing that it will implement the applications binary interface across all MIPS systems, so that if any M/SIG member finds fault with application software developed on the pledged MIPS boxes, the responsibility, and the cost of fixing it, will rest with MIPS. This week, M/SIG is expected to announce that it has unanimously accepted the MIPS System V.4 source code reference implementations for Sony Corp, NEC Corp and Pyramid Technology Corp hardware, engineered by Unix System Laboratories Inc, together with those companies. It has believed MIPS’ sudden tractability, which some M/SIG members are still suspicious of, may be motivated by the hot breath of an unpolished Microsoft NT on its neck, despite its unholy alliance with Microsoft.
