Towards the end of last year, the forces backing AT&T Co, most notably Sun Microsystems Inc, began a drive to get X/Open formally to adopt the latest version of the Unix System V Interface Definition. Now since the System V Interface Definition is nothing less than the System Unix V.4 specification, the manoeuvre is a very thinly-disguised attempt to get the premier Unix standards group to back System V.4 and snub the Open Software Foundation’s OSF/1. Foundation president David Tory told our sister paper Unigram.X the week before last that this particular anti-Foundation ploy was nipped in the bud. Well, we hate to burst his bubble, but the truth is the ball is still in play. According to X/Open president Geoff Morris and Unix International president Peter Cunningham, the notion wasn’t deep-sixed, but sent to an X/Open subcommittee simply because it was brought to the last sitting of the X/Open board at the last minute rather than the required six weeks or so before it met. The motion is still in that subcommittee and will stay there alive and well – until the X/Open board meets again, whenever that is. It was supposed to be right after UniForum on January 25, but that was scrubbed because of the war with Iraq and the last we heard, it was indefinitely on hold.
