As we went to press, the first of the Open Software Foundation’s technology sessions was beginning at Andover, near Boston, Massachusetts. Members and non-members were gathering to judge the 23 graphical user interface products and technologies to be presented at 30 sessions during the three day meeting that will lead to a decision on what the user interface to the majority of applications will look like for the next decade and more. Shortlisted products were selected from around 35 products originally submitted, the criteria being Posix compliance, compatibility with version 11 of the X Window System, scope of the system, technical integrity, and overall relevance to the OSF’s request for technology. The expected contestants are there: Apollo Computer with Open Dialogue, DEC with XUI DECWindows, Hewlett-Packard with NewWave and Sony with its Widgets toolkit. AT&T, despite its rivalry with OSF is there with Open Look, and Foundation sponsors Bull and Siemens are also offering technology. Other expected contestants are Adobe Systems, whose Display Postscript is likely to be the basis of Steve Jobs’ Next Inc user interface, likely to be endorsed by IBM (CI No 969); Digital Research with an X-Window-based version of Gem; and the UK’s IXI Ltd with Interfirm Graphic Systems. Microsoft Corp, which is known to be working on PM/X Presentation Manager for Unix – is represented only through its collaboration with Hewlett Packard on its NewWave interface – the product that is the subject of litigation from Apple Computer. Apple itself, which some commentators expected to unbundle its proprietary user interface technology, is probably the most important absentee. Details of other products submitted have not yet emerged, but come from American Management Systems Inc, Carnegie-Mellon University, Electronic Data Systems Corp, the UK’s JSB Computer Systems, NASA and Century Computing Inc, Neuron Data Inc, NMP-CAD from Sweden, Sequent Computer Systems, C++ experts Stepstone Corporation, Team Engineering Inc, the User Software Research Corp, Virtual Machine Corp, and Visual Edge Software from Canada. The submissions include several complete graphical interfaces, style guides, and toolkits. A decision on which one – or combination – to go for, is likely to be arrived at towards year-end.
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