Supposed Redmond stooges over at the European Computer Manufacturer’s Association have failed in their bid to prevent the organisation hosting continued development of Public Windows Initiative application programming interface specifications for converting and runing Windows applications under Unix without a Microsoft Corp licence (CI No 2,604). Supporters of what is dubbed API Windows achieved a two-thirds majority required in the vote, results of which were revealed at the association’s co-ordinating committee meeting in Reading last week. API Windows will proceed in an ad hoc development unit until it can be voted on in a full technical committee at the association’s June meeting. The API Windows group expects its work to be passed into an In ternational Standards Organisation fast track process early next year, a year after its mentor, SunSoft Inc, had originally envisaged. The group will deliver the first tranche of its application programming interface documentation work in time for the June meet, the rest by the end of the year. Development funding for this phase has already been secured from the US Department of Defense. Creation of test suites depends on how sponsors want to carry the project forward. The notion of an Open Software Foundation PST, Prestructured Technology Process, being organised around API Windows is likely to recede, premised as it was on the specification being rejected by the European organisation.
