kmw@ardent.UUCP (Ken Wallich) (09/23/88)
Since this has nothing whatsover to do with the Mac, and in fact nothing to do will Apple, I have set the followup to comp.misc. We should continue further discussion there. In article <3705@Portia.Stanford.EDU> mouser@portia.stanford.edu (Michael Wang) writes: > >Now to finish the story, IBM bought the rights to use NeXT's user interface >so that they could use it in their development with the OSF group and in >their own versions of AIX. In effect, if the OSF UNIX standard succeeds and >AT&T and Sun's fail, then the NeXT user interface would become the industry >standard among UNIX computers - very good incentive for Steve Jobs to sell >the interface to IBM. > I have closely followed the AT&T/Sun merge as well as all the OSF information. I've also followed NeXT, as much as possible. I wonder if you could give us more information on how you reached this conclusion. I haven't seen the specifics of NeXT's licensing agreement with IBM, but it seem very unlikely to me that NeXT would spend all of this time and resources building it, and then simply give IBM a free and clear license to do anything they wanted with it, (including *donate* it to OSF) even for a few tens of millions of dollars. If NeXT *gave* their interface away, and their interface was the focal point of what made their machine better than everyone elses, why would we buy their box? Of course, we don't really know WHAT the focal point of the machine is, except that they want to own the "higher education" market. OSF has a RFT for user interface standards pending now. If NeXT wishes to submit it's interface, OSF would be happy to look at it, with or without an agreement with IBM. I don't see how IBM getting rights to use the interface has anything to do with OSF adopting it. Remember, DEC has its own set of User Interface specifications they have submitted to OSF, as has AT&T/Sun with OPEN LOOK (their caps, not mine). DEC belongs to OSF, and they have commited just as much money and effort to it as IBM has, and have an equal vote on the board. IBM cannot say "OSF is going to use this interface, because we want them to". I could easily be missing some critical piece of the puzzle, so if you have any more concrete information I'd love to be enlightened -- Ken Wallich Ardent Computer Corp {uunet, ubvax, decwrl, hplabs}!ardent!kmw Sunnyvale, California, USA "if we weren't all crazy, we'd all go INSANE"
slf@well.UUCP (Sharon Lynne Fisher) (09/25/88)
>OSF has a RFT for user interface standards pending now. If NeXT wishes to >submit it's interface, OSF would be happy to look at it, with or without >an agreement with IBM. I don't see how IBM getting rights to use the Actually, the deadline for submissions has passed, and OSF is going to announce on Monday, I think, 20 "semifinalists" out of 37, I think, original submissions.