X/Open Co Ltd has now secured 11 licensees for its Unix brand, although all of them are for the Unix 93 specification and not the Unix 95 (Spec 1170) level. They are Amdahl Corp, AT&T Global Information Solutions, Compagnie des Machines Bull SA, Digital Equipment Corp, Hewlett-Packard Co, IBM Corp, Novell Inc, Santa Cruz Operation Inc, Siemens Nixdorf Informationssysteme AG and Sun Microsystems Inc. Vendors we asked said they were waiting for the final test suite technology from X/Open before they would move to Unix 95. Not true said X/Open, which released its final testing specifications at the end of last month. For most vendors, full Spec 1170 compliance requires a full operating system revision and, therefore, integration into their respective product release cycles. Vendors with Spec 1170 Unix licences from X/Open Co Ltd will be able to use the organisation’s brand for Common Desktop Environment products at no extra charge, although the environment’s specification is separate from Spec 1170, and royalties agreements will be required on all other branded implementations. X/Open will review future Common Desktop Environment enhancements out of the Open Software Foundation Common Desktop Pre-Structured Technology process for inclusion in the brand. Although recommendations from X/Open’s desktop requirements group have already been incorporated into the initial Pre-Structured Technology draft, the two organisations have previously agreed to harmonise their requirements and feedback processes; X/Open sends a warning to vendors that user’s real needs need to be taken into account. When common Desktop progresses beyond ToolTalk inter-application and service messaging, CDE 1.0 branded implementations will be upwardly compatible.
