The Japanese national standards group is understood to have submitted plans for a language-independent Generic Operating System Interface to the International Standards Organisation and claims it would provide an application software interface at a higher level of abstraction than the IEEE’s Unix-derived Posix specification, which depends on the C language. The group claims that the Generic Interface would support existing and future generations of computing environments: possibly including the Pink operating system effort currently under way at IBM Corp and Apple Computer Inc. Meanwhile, IEEE has submitted its own plan for a generic operating system interface to the standards body: its baby is christened Mosi, the Microcomputer Operating System Interface. Along with a growing number of other hopefuls, the Japanese group is also said to have ideas for an application programming interface that supports a range of windowing systems, including Motif and Open Look. And, like others encroaching on X/Open Group’s traditional terrain, the group is thought to have a reference model and framework for application portability.
