pds@quintus.uucp (Peter Schachte) (03/02/89)
Oops. I found out what X/Open is, and it doesn't have anything to do with the X Window System. How dare they use the letter X in their name :-) ? Anyway, sorry for wasting the bandwidth. -Peter Schachte pds@quintus.uucp ..!sun!quintus!pds
DAN@YKTVMV.BITNET (03/02/89)
The seven volumes of the portability guide are available from Prentice-Hall for $130. (Individual volumes are also available). Prentice-Hall Book Distribution Center Route 59 at Brook Hill Dr. West Hyack, NY 10995 (201)-592-2498 Prentice-Hall International UK Limited 66 Wood Lane End Hemel Hempstead, Herts. HP2 4RG United Kingdom (tel) 442-231555 (fax) 442-312485 It was supposed to be available in December. I ordered then and have not received it yet.
MJB@cup.portal.com (Martin J Brown-Jr) (03/03/89)
According to the X/Open brochure, gotten from the X/Open people at UniForum
and quoted without permission:
"X/Open's mission is to coordinate the development of the Common
Applications Enviroment (CAE)...
"The ultimate goal is the specification and certification of the CAE,
which leads to application software portability, a common user interface and
a common programmer interface, all supported by hardware systems from a wide
variety of sources...
"The X/Open Common Applications Environment will ultimately provide
complete development and run-time support for totally portable application
software and high levels of interoperability across machines...
"By utilizing only interfaces defined in the X/Open Portability Guide,
application developers can ensure that their applications are totally
portable at the source code level...
"The Portability Guide is available to users and developers worldwide
through Prentiss Hall Publishing. Specifications currently defined in the
Portability Guide include:
"OPERATING SYSTEM SERVICES
"X/Open fully supports the IEEE definition of a Portable Operating
System for Computer Environments (POSIX), ... to fully align with the
emerging POSIX standard as defined by IEEE P1003.1. X/Open will continue
to align with and adopt the full specifications of POSIX as they evolve...
"PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES
"The C language is fundamental to the X/Open environment. In the absence
of a formal standard, the X/Open definition is based on the existing de
facto standard, together with advice on intercepting the emerging ANSI
standard...
"Definitions for FORTRAN and Pascal are the widely adopted ANSI FORTRAN-77
and ISO Pascal, respectively. The definition for COBOL is the ANSI COBOL 8
standard...the Ada language as defined by the U.S. Department of Defense.
"DATA MANAGEMENT
"...For access to relations databases, an extended subset of the ANSI
Database Language SQL is defined, which supports embedded SQL calls within C
or COBOL source programs.
"NETWORKING
"...The X/Open Trnasport Interface will define a programming interface to
ISO Tansport Level 4 services. The interface is totally independent of
underlying protocols.
"WINDOW MANAGEMENT
"...X/Open is defining a complete user interface environment that defines
a programming interface to the X-Windows networked window management system.
"SECURITY
"...X/Open is developing a handbook that provides a clear and concise
definition of the security features of the X/Open environment and ways to
exploit them."
An Independent Software Vendor (ISV) Council assists X/Open in
establishing future technical and marketing directions and priorities. Some
of the members of the ISV are: Cullinet Software Inc., Informix Software Inc.,
Lotus Development Corp., Microsoft Corp., Oracle Corp., Relational Technology,
Sysbase Inc., and Unify Corp.
For further info contact:
X/Open X/Open Company Ltd.
1750 Montgomery Street c/o ICL
San Francisco, Ca. 94111 Lovelace Road
Bracknell, Berkshire
RG12 4SN United Kingdom
(415) 773-5383 44-(0)344-424842 ext.3254
FAX (415) 421-4278 FAX 44-(0)344-487832
I hope the above info gives some idea of what X/Open is about.
- MJB -