gnu@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore) (02/09/90)
Well, IBM has thrown its predictable monkey wrench into the X & Motif
machinery. Did those OSF folks really believe IBM was coming in to
promote open systems? No, they wanted to *appear* to be switching, so
that both that appearance and their later "turnaround" would sow
their traditional Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt.
Note that IBM is rumored to have licensed Display PostScript from
Adobe for running NextStep.
Let's see if it turns any heads. Not that the NeWS camp is poised to
take advantage of good news if it showed up...
Check comp.sys.next, which is full of press releases, rumor, and talk
about this.
John
--
John Gilmore {sun,pacbell,uunet,pyramid}!hoptoad!gnu gnu@toad.com
Just say *yes* to drugs. If someone offers you a drug war, just say no.ehrlich@cs.psu.edu (Daniel Ehrlich) (02/15/90)
In article <10143@hoptoad.uucp> gnu@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore) writes:
John> Well, IBM has thrown its predictable monkey wrench into the X & Motif
John> machinery. Did those OSF folks really believe IBM was coming in to
John> promote open systems? No, they wanted to *appear* to be switching, so
John> that both that appearance and their later "turnaround" would sow
John> their traditional Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt.
John> Note that IBM is rumored to have licensed Display PostScript from
John> Adobe for running NextStep.
John> Let's see if it turns any heads. Not that the NeWS camp is poised to
John> take advantage of good news if it showed up...
John> Check comp.sys.next, which is full of press releases, rumor, and talk
John> about this.
IBM had an RT running NeXTStep at the Baltimore USENIX last summer. It was
very slow and crashed a lot. They did not have anything running NeXTStep at
the UNIFORUM in Washington, and then they make this announcement. One might
conclude that some divisions in IBM do not talk to each other. :-)
--
Dan Ehrlich <ehrlich@cs.psu.edu>
Voice: +1 814 863 1142 FAX: +1 814 865 3176kent@wsl.dec.com (Christopher A. Kent) (02/15/90)
The fact is that IBM has licensed Display PostScript -- that's no rumor. It also remains to be seen exactly how they built NextStep into their boxes. There are at least two ways of running Display PostScript on a machine -- on bare framebuffer iron, or as an extension to X. Either way that they've done it, there will be some incompatibilities. They've publicly said that IBM NextStep programs will require source code changes to run on NeXT, and vice versa. It'll be interesting. It certainly throws some new stuff into the fray. Whether it's real or a red herring remains to be seen. Chris Kent Western Software Laboratory Digital Equipment Corporation kent@decwrl.dec.com decwrl!kent (415) 853-6639
dyer@spdcc.COM (Steve Dyer) (02/15/90)
In article <C;9:403@cs.psu.edu> ehrlich@cs.psu.edu (Daniel Ehrlich) writes: >IBM had an RT running NeXTStep at the Baltimore USENIX last summer. It was >very slow and crashed a lot. They did not have anything running NeXTStep at >the UNIFORUM in Washington, and then they make this announcement. One might >conclude that some divisions in IBM do not talk to each other. :-) IBM certainly did have NeXTStep running at UNIForum. If you walked too fast thru their booth you'd have missed it, because it had a smallish sign which advertised it as something like "Advanced User Interface Foobar" and didn't use the word NeXTStep at all. This was a few weeks before the announcement, you see. -- Steve Dyer dyer@ursa-major.spdcc.com aka {ima,harvard,rayssd,linus,m2c}!spdcc!dyer dyer@arktouros.mit.edu, dyer@hstbme.mit.edu
stpeters@dawn.crd.ge.COM (Dick St.Peters) (02/15/90)
Dan Ehrlich <ehrlich@cs.psu.edu> writes: > IBM had an RT running NeXTStep at the Baltimore USENIX last summer. It was > very slow and crashed a lot. They did not have anything running NeXTStep at > the UNIFORUM in Washington, and then they make this announcement. One might > conclude that some divisions in IBM do not talk to each other. :-) Is anyone surprised at this? As part of a company comparable in size to IBM, I can attest that different parts of a large company are often not only unaware of what others are doing, they don't care. No division lets others make decisions for it. The same applies for subdivisions and subsubdivisions, etc. Unless you have reason to believe that something has the personal attention of the CEO or else represents a broad consensus within the company, be wary of reading too much into what "the company" does. -- Dick St.Peters, GE Corporate R&D, Schenectady, NY stpeters@dawn.crd.ge.com uunet!dawn.crd.ge.com!stpeters
jsw@xhead.SGI.COM (Jeff Weinstein) (02/16/90)
IBM has demo'd NeXTStep on RT's in the ancient past. Recently it has been demo'd on PS/2's running AIX. In all these cases it has been shown running the NeXTStep server standalone, NOT integrated with X. Jeff Weinstein - X Protocol Police Silicon Graphics, Inc., Entry Systems Division, Window Systems jsw@xhead.esd.sgi.com Any opinions expressed above are mine, not sgi's.
caro@adobe.com (Perry A. Caro) (02/17/90)
The other shoe has dropped. The big introduction of the new RISC
System/6000 family included announcement of AIX Windows (X11R3) with
OSF/Motif and Adobe's Display PostScript system extension to X Windows
AS WELL AS AIX NextStep. Monkey wrench into X & Motif? Backing away
from open systems? Hardly. It sounds to me like IBM will provide both
environments and will let their customers decide.
Note that NextStep is not built on X, or vice versa. They are provided
as two separate software configurations. Note also that AIX and DPS
are the common denominators.
Perry
-----------
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adobe!caro@decwrl.dec.com any other person or organization.