Sun Microsystems Inc is to transfer rights to the Sparc trademark and logo to the Sparc International Inc supporters’ club, and has licensed the Sparc technology to the group, which will in future implement and conduct component, systems and software tests to verify compliance with Sparc standard definitions. The trademark agreement defines the control process for the evolution of the Sparc architecture and the Sparc Compliance Definition, which describes a common software and hardware environment that, strictly adhered to, will enable binary compatibility of applications on Sparc systems. It will be complete later this year, and the aim is that buying software for a Sparc-trademarked system will be as easy as buying software for an MS-DOS or Mac personal computer. Version 1.0 of the Definition is based on SunOS 4.03, and 2.0 2.0 will be based on Unix System V.4.0 and the Sparc Application Binary Interface. It says that there are over 1,500 applications for the Sparc now, up from 400 a year ago.
