klee@wsl.dec.com (Ken Lee) (02/14/90)
I recently posted some rather vague information on window system standardization. Several people asked for more info. Hopefully, this is a little clearer. The accredited standards committees that I know are doing work in this area are ANSI X3H3.6, IEEE/TCOS P1201, X/Open, NIST, and ISO/IEC/JTC1 SC24. ANSI is standardizing the X protocol, OSI mapping of the protocol, and X server functionality. IEEE is standardizing X libraries (Xlib and Xt) and user interface development tools based on X. X/Open and NIST are developing portability standards that include X (servers through X intrinsics). They will probably adapt the ANSI and IEEE standards when they are done. ISO plans to directly accept the work of ANSI and IEEE. Why are these groups standardizing on X? Interoperability and functionality. Interoperable implementations on may different architectures already exist for X. Standardization will minimize problems for future implementations. The model the standards groups are using for X is as a window management system upon which higher level graphics standards can be built. GKS, PHIGS, and CGI are all already available on X, but not on other window systems. These issues may not be important to you, but they are to standards people. If you're interested in standards, it's easy to participate in the 2 most influential groups, ANSI and IEEE. ANSI is open to anyone, although each company only gets 1 vote. IEEE P1201 is open to any IEEE Computer Society member. The other groups have more restrictions on membership, but the standards are generally applicable only to members. Ken Lee DEC Western Software Laboratory, Palo Alto, Calif. Internet: klee@wsl.dec.com uucp: uunet!decwrl!klee