Moving on from its ClassiX source code development kits, French microkernel house Chorus Systemes SA will begin selling binary implementations of its system software, starting with an Intel Corp iAPX-86 product due late this year. Versions for Motorola Inc’s 68000, Sparc and other systems will follow in 1996, along with a campaign for development hearts and minds. Chorus says that the binary software is aimed at second-tier developers that do not want, or need, source code and all the problems that it brings. Meantime, Chorus, which according to what we hear does not actually have an agreement with Novell Inc that extends to the use of Chorus’s microkernel for use in Novell’s SuperNOS project, is also still waiting to tell its new Santa Cruz Operation Inc story. Santa Cruz and Chorus have been promising a new and wider agreement for some time (CI No 2,303). It seems likely that Santa Cruz will use the inherent system-independence of Chorus’s microkernel technology to take its Unix implementation on to processors it does not yet reach. Chorus is not interested in putting Spec 1170 application programming interfaces onto the microkernel itself, emphasising that it is not a Unix vendor, but the it adds that OEM customers will want to run their Spec 1170 Unixes on top.
