The Open Software Foundation has, as expected, issued it’s third Request for Technology document to solicit interoperability technology, in its initial move to create a vendor-neutral networking and distributed computing environment. The aim is to identify the core technologies needed to support distributed applications including services such as remote procedure calls, naming of network resources, authentication and network security, presentation services for multi-vendor data representations, and distributed file systems – corresponding to the Session, Presentation and Application layers of the seven layer Open Systems Interconnection model. Applications not a part of the core services (such as electronic mail), and network protocols and interfaces of Open Systems level 4 and below are not included within the Request. Letters of intent are due in on July 28, with complete submissions to be ready by October 6. The next stage is a members technology review meeting scheduled for November, after which an evaluation team will review the submissions. The Foundation said it envisaged shipments by mid-1990. Submissions are likely to involve technologies from various sources, and are expected to be the subject of fierce debate as Foundation members push for their own vision of the distributed model.
