The hand-over of the Common Open Software Environment’s Common Desktop Environment specification to X/Open Co Ltd, which had been due by the end of last year, has been delayed. The standards body will say only that it is evaluating the impact and preparing a revised plan. Insiders say part of the problem is simply functional and that the disparate Common Desktop development teams have had difficulty finding time to get together. However, sources also say that one of the COSE firms has made it known over the last couple of weeks that it considers that the Common Desktop code is not stable enough to build a product upon. Extrapolating the consequences of any prolonged delay to X/Open Co Ltd’s fast-track process, Hewlett-Packard Co and IBM Corp, which are both keen to get to market with Common Desktop products, may start shipping non-certified implementations of the thing. Meanwhile, the Spec 1170 Unix application programming interface is being turned over to Reading, Berkshire-based X/Open’s fast-track process – it’s just that one of the wheels has a flat tyre at the moment. X/Open says that an initial version was delivered in the middle of December, but adds that the sponsors are still completing a small section of the specification. A formal hand-over and report on the resolution of comments arising from the industry review is expected by mid-month. X/Open will now carry out an acceptance review prior to submitting the spec to the fast-track process, to ensure that it has broad industry support, and will carry out a quality assurance check to ensure all agreed changes arising from the original industry review have been correctly applied, and that industry consensus is built around areas where mutually incompatible comments were received. X/Open says the initial quality assurance process should be complete by the end of the first quarter, and aims for fast-track approval by mid-year.
