jw@pan.UUCP (Jamie Watson) (09/15/88)
In article <8809121841.AA00932@eros.pa.dec.com> price@WSL.DEC.COM writes: >> ...It sure beats DEC, who won't let their >> widget set out at all. Consider THAT in your next purchase of >> hardware... > >WRONG. ABSOLUTELY AND COMPLETELY WRONG. Digital's DECwindows Widget Set >is available by licensing the XUI package. Well, this was bothering me as I was listening to the presentations and panel discussion an Xhibition. DEC has a widget set and UI package. AT&T and Sun have one. HP has one and a half. Several others were discussed during the conference. With every one, the story was essentially the same; you can license it directly from the developer. What bothers me about this is that this implies first that people are going to have to spend a fair amount of time tracking down who, at DEC for example, they are really to license from; and second, all these licenses add up, both in direct cost and in time invested to obtain them. It sure would be a lot nicer if they came on the X distribution tape. It makes me wonder if the first of these major developers who has the courage and foresight to put their stuff on the X tape will win by default. >media, same as MIT charges. With it you get a source license. But you >get MUCH MUCH more than just a widget set. You get the UIL compiler >and run-time system, an ICCCM compliant window manager, and a session >manager. This is really very admirable, and I don't mean to engage in unjustified DEC-bashing here. I think DEC has clearly proven their willingness to cooperate in the X development effort with their contributions so far; it's just too bad that they are taking a different approach this time. >All components conform to the DECwindows Style Guide, a >document which has been honed for over 2 years by industrial designers >and Digital's system and product development teams. This is the part where I think the fireworks are going to fly. Every one of these companies that were touting their UI packages at Xhibition were very quick to say that the important thing for X now was to settle on a standard UIMS. They were also all very obviously convinced that this standard would be their own package. Suppose that DECWindows is chosen as the standard by OSF (and by the X Consortium, if they are going to choose one). How quick will AT&T/Sun be to adopt DECWindows (and pay DEC a healthy royalty for the privelidge)? Again, I'm not trying to pick on anybody here; reverse the roles if you like, or fill in the names of other major competitors; the story fits the same way. I just don't see how we are going to get to the standardized UIMS utopia that all the vendors were talking about anytime in the near future. jw
diamant@hpfclp.SDE.HP.COM (John Diamant) (09/18/88)
> HP has one and a half. Several others were discussed > during the conference. With every one, the story was essentially the same; > you can license it directly from the developer. [...] It sure would be a > lot nicer if they came on the X distribution tape. It makes me wonder > if the first of these major developers who has the courage and foresight > to put their stuff on the X tape will win by default. I'm not sure what you mean that HP has one and a half. Anyway, the HP widgets (as well as the Sony widgets) are currently available on expo.lcs.mit.edu for anonymous ftp and both will be on the R3 tape (available "Octoberish" apparently). John Diamant Software Engineering Systems Hewlett-Packard Co. ARPA Internet: diamant@hpfclp.sde.hp.com Fort Collins, CO UUCP: {hplabs,hpfcla}!hpfclp!diamant