Common Open Software Environment types Unigram.X spoke to last week expect the group to adopt SunSelect’s collection of Microsoft Corp Windows 3.1 calls, the PWI Public Windows Interface, next year, once an initial version of the specification is complete. The idea behind Public Windows Interface is to bring Windows application programming interfaces into the public domain and make it harder for Microsoft to alter, so as to trip up the competition – an example of which is SunSelect, offering to support Windows applications under Unix via its Wabi technology without the need for a Windows licence. With the common desktop environment under the Open Software Environment’s belt, it now has three potential networking standards under review – Distributed Computing Environment, Network File System and NetWare client. Meanwhile, another COSE graphics standards committee is working with Xlib, PEXlib and XIElib standards; yet another is working with the Object Management Group to adopt Common Object Request Broker Architecture standards; a multimedia committee is talking shop with the International Multimedia Association on distributed media service and a desktop integrated media environment, while the systems management workgroup’s activities have been taken up by X/Open Co Ltd, which is currently reviewing contenders for a standard. The Common Open Software Environment firms are also investigating data management technologies in conjunction with the Data Management Interface Group, while Digital Equipment Corp and Sun Microsystems Inc are trying, on behalf of the group, to establish a general Federated Naming service to improve interoperability between naming services provided by different distributed environments such as Distributed Computing Environment and ONC Open Network Computing.
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