SunSoft's OpenWindows Directions
Pierre Bedard (SunSoft Windows Marketing)
Please find attached a copy of a Windows direction statement
which was presented at the X Windows Technical Conference
last week.
cut here---------------------------------------
SUNSOFT'S WINDOWS DIRECTIONS
SunSoft recently entered into an agreement with Adobe
Systems to license the Display PostScript System (DPS)
for Solaris. This message is intended to clarify
SunSoft's OpenWindows directions in light of our
partnership with Adobe and our commitment to MIT's X
Window System.
Since 1989, Sun has supported MIT's X protocol in its
OpenWindows product. SunSoft will continue its commitment to
MIT's X Window system by shipping an OpenWindows product
based on the MIT source code. The last release of Solaris
featuring X11/NeWS and TNT will ship in mid 1993. Subsequent
releases of Solaris will incorporate MIT's X11R5 coupled
with Adobe Display PostScript Level 2 as well as other
imaging and geometry libraries.
OLIT IMPROVEMENTS
The mid 1993 release of Solaris will feature major
improvements in the OPEN LOOK Intrinsics Toolkit (OLIT)
based on X11R5 intrinsics. A candidate for IEEE
standardization, you can easily port applications
developed with OLIT to European and Asian versions. You
can dynamically customize OLIT applications at runtime,
allowing better control of fonts and colors. Sporting the
same look and feel of applications developed with
SunSoft's popular XView toolkit, OLIT is an intrinsics-
based alternative.
WHY A NEW DIRECTION?
Starting in 1993, OpenWindows will use MIT's source code as
its foundation. Though the switch from an X11/NeWS based
server to an X11R5 server will impact applications which
depend on NeWS technology, SunSoft believes developers and
users will reap major benefits. Improvements in server
quality and performance, as well as a more standard X
implementation will benefit all Solaris users. All programs
written using the X protocol and libraries will run on
the new X11R5-based server. In addition, SunSoft will be
standardizing on ddx for the writing of graphics frame
buffer device drivers. This, along with the adoption of
a standard Xinput extension mechanism, will lower the
cost of bringing hardware peripherals to market.
CONTACTS
For information about X server issues:
Pierre Bedard (pierre...@Eng.Sun.Com)
Bill Brown (bill....@Eng.Sun.Com)
For information about SunSoft's toolkits:
Jim Mukerjee (jim.mu...@Eng.Sun.Com)
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ---------------------
Q. What versions of Solaris will this new OpenWindows
server run on? When will this new server ship?
A. This server will run on Solaris 2.x systems only. The next
release of Solaris will feature the last release of X11/NeWS.
All releases after this release will support the X11R5 server
only. No dates have been set for this release.
Q. What about XView?
A. SunSoft recognizes that many of our customers use the
XView toolkit. You do not need to port applications from
XView to OLIT. You can maintain your present applications
on XView until you feel comfortable moving to an object
environment or you need functionality not available on
XView.
Q. Will all the applications that now run on X11/NeWS work
on this new window system? Will Drag and Drop and ToolTalk
work?
A. If an application conforms to X protocol, it will run. As
an example, Deskset (except PageView which uses NeWS) runs
on MIT's X11R5 with no code change. Applications using the
ICCCM Drag and Drop protocol and ToolTalk will also work.
Unfortunately, applications using the NeWS Toolkit (TNT) or
NeWS imaging will not be supported. Applications using NeWS
imaging must be ported to Display PostScript. We recommend
that applications using TNT be ported to OLIT.
Q. How long will X11/NeWS and TNT be supported?
A. Support for X11/NeWS and TNT will continue to be
available. Source code for the latest release of
OpenWindows will also be available at a reasonable price.
Q. What is DPS?
A. The Display PostScript System provides a device-
independent imaging model for displaying information on
the screen. By allowing you to use PostScript to display
text, graphics, and sampled images, it frees you from
display-specific details such as screen resolution and the
number of available colors.
In September 1992, SunSoft entered into a long-term
partnership with Adobe Systems to provide Solaris users with
the Display PostScript System. SunSoft will feature DPS as
an integral part of Solaris.
Q. Is DPS a standard?
A. Though DPS is not a sanctioned standard, it is fast
becoming a de facto UNIX standard. All major Unix platform
vendors (SGI, IBM, DEC, NCD, etc.), except Hewlett-Packard,
support the DPS extension to X.
Q. What do you mean by compatibility?
A. All X applications written for Solaris which conform
to the X protocol should run with the X11R5 server.
Developers should be able to leverage one source base for
multiple UNIX platforms.
Q. What about NeWSprint?
A. NeWSprint will continue to be an integral part of
Sun's printing solution. The windows direction has
no adverse impact on NeWSprint. In a separate agreement
with Adobe, SunPics has licensed Adobe technology for
inclusion into future printing and imaging products.
NeWSprint, an environment of many modules, enables
customers to print on heterogenous networks. One of
the modules will be Adobe's PostScript imager or RIP
which will be shared with SunSoft's Solaris OpenWindows
window system. This will enrich NeWSprint by enhancing the
RIP module with industry-standard Adobe PostScript.
Q. How much better is performance?
A. End users will see immediate improvements in server
bootup time, application launch speed, and window snap.
Q. Is product quality that much better?
A. We believe OWV3 is a high-quality product. By moving
to an MIT source base we will be able to deliver an even
higher quality product. MIT has issued many public
patches since the release of R5, containing over 1,300
bug fixes. Patches are issued every few weeks. Moving to
the MIT X source base allows SunSoft to leverage all
engineers working on X Window Systems throughout the
world. SunSoft can also be more proactive in donating
work to the X community at large.
Q. You say you are based on standards? Is OLIT a standard?
A. Not yet, though OLIT is now the basis of a IEEE working
group P1295.2 the Open Toolkit Environment (OTKE). OTKE
is standards work which has been proposed in the IEEE
Computer Society. This work will establish a toolkit
standard based on OPEN LOOK.
Matt Landau
>Q. What about XView?
>A. SunSoft recognizes that many of our customers use the
>XView toolkit. You do not need to port applications from
>XView to OLIT. You can maintain your present applications
>on XView until you feel comfortable moving to an object
>environment or you need functionality not available on
>XView.
This sounds a lot like SunSoft is setting the stage to *drop* XView
entirely. The phrases "maintain your present applications" and "need
functionality not available on XView" conspicuously avoids any mention
of new application development using XView, or of ongoing development
work on the XView toolkit itself.
Can we have *clear* statement of direction from SunSoft on the future
of XView? Will SunSoft continue development of XView, adding features
and fixing bugs in new releases? Or is work on XView being suspended,
with an eye toward EOL'ing the product in favor of OLIT? Forgive my
bluntness here, but at least in the window systems arena, SunSoft has
an unfortunate history of quietly hinting that products are going away
without ever coming right out and saying it.
>Q. How long will X11/NeWS and TNT be supported?
>A. Support for X11/NeWS and TNT will continue to be
>available. Source code for the latest release of
>OpenWindows will also be available at a reasonable price.
You didn't answer your own question. *HOW LONG* (your question, not
mine) will support continue to be available? I don't actually care,
not being a tnt or NeWS programmer, but if you're going to pose the
question in a public new posting, you should at least answer the same
question you posed :-)
>Q. Is product quality that much better?
>A. We believe OWV3 is a high-quality product. By moving
>to an MIT source base we will be able to deliver an even
>higher quality product. MIT has issued many public
>patches since the release of R5, containing over 1,300
>bug fixes. Patches are issued every few weeks.
The frequency of MIT patch releases seems irrelevant unless SunSoft
is planning to provide corresponding patch releases of OpenWindows
version 3.X every few weeks or months, instead of once a year or so.
Judging from the speed with which other vendors who have MIT-based
servers update their product releases, this seems fairly unlikely.
In other words, the fact that MIT provides patches every few weeks
doesn't do me any good as a user of SunSoft's next OpenWindows system
unless I have the source. Is SunSoft planning to distribute the
source?
Don't get me wrong, I think that, politics of the Workstation Wars
being what they are, SunSoft might be doing the right thing for its
business here (although I'll surely regret the loss of the last truly
innovative window system technology outside of NeXT). But the way
it's presented here makes it sound like something it isn't.
--
Matt Landau Waiting for a flash of enlightenment
ma...@centerline.com in all this blood and thunder
Needless to say, these opinions are my own. CenterLine probably
wouldn't be caught dead agreeing with anything I say :-)
Paul Davey
>>>>> said: NNTP-Posting-Host: 140.239.1.32
...
Matt> This sounds a lot like SunSoft is setting the stage to
Matt> *drop* XView entirely. The phrases "maintain your
Matt> present applications" and "need functionality not
Matt> available on XView" conspicuously avoids any mention of
Matt> new application development using XView, or of ongoing
Matt> development work on the XView toolkit itself.
Thye gave a longer explanation at the BOF. Briefly XView was
originally envisioned as a transition from Sunview to X and it's time
has now come.
Sun reps also said that XView bug fixing will continue for a while,
but that no significant functionality will be added so that resources
can be used on developing OLIT.
I think we'll also probably see the Fresco and DOE technologies
filling the NeWS gap in the future.
--
Regards, IXI Internet: p...@x.co.uk
Paul Davey Vision Park UUCP: p...@ixi.uucp
Cambridge Bang: ...!uunet!ixi!pd
"These are interesting times" CB4 4ZR, UK Tel: +44 223 236 555
Roland Besserer
: In <lmb9gg...@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> pie...@stendhal.Eng.Sun.COM (Pierre Bedard (SunSoft Windows Marketing)) writes:
:
: >Q. What about XView?
:
: >A. SunSoft recognizes that many of our customers use the
: >XView toolkit. You do not need to port applications from
: >XView to OLIT. You can maintain your present applications
: >on XView until you feel comfortable moving to an object
: >environment or you need functionality not available on
: >XView.
:
: This sounds a lot like SunSoft is setting the stage to *drop* XView
: entirely. The phrases "maintain your present applications" and "need
: functionality not available on XView" conspicuously avoids any mention
: of new application development using XView, or of ongoing development
: work on the XView toolkit itself.
Yup, that's exactly what it sounds like. I consider XView the best toolkit
by a long shot and OLIT is just a pain to program in compared to XView.
Why SUN would discontinue XView instead of upgrading it is beyond me.
Abandoning XView may very well initiate the demise of OpenLook.
With XView support/development about to be suspended - and the writing is on
the wall - why would anyone bother with OLIT. I will move straight to Motif
(although I do dislike it) instead of using another SUN developed toolkit
and setting myself up to be screwed again in a couple of years.
: Can we have *clear* statement of direction from SunSoft on the future
: of XView? Will SunSoft continue development of XView, adding features
: and fixing bugs in new releases? Or is work on XView being suspended,
: with an eye toward EOL'ing the product in favor of OLIT? Forgive my
: bluntness here, but at least in the window systems arena, SunSoft has
: an unfortunate history of quietly hinting that products are going away
: without ever coming right out and saying it.
:
All you'll get are hints and rumors.
Of course, the entire SunSoft post simply admits that SUN is finally giving
up on the X11/NeWS server and admits that it is a slow, overblown resource
hog that can turn a low-end SPARC into a system about as responsive as a
80286 box. In that respect, the move to an X11R5 based server is a
positive development, but not strictly required as many users already
happy run the MIT X server distribution - myself included - which happily
runs all deskset tools except pageview.
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Roland Besserer QUAD Systems, Santa Cruz rol...@quadsys.com
Guy Harris
>(although I do dislike it) instead of using another SUN developed toolkit
>and setting myself up to be screwed again in a couple of years.
Well, OLIT was originally developed by AT&T/USL; USL has gone off with
MoOLIT, while Sun's continuing with OLIT, it seems. Hopefully, the IEEE
standard in development will keep USL and/or Sun from indulging in Excess
Creativity(TM) and will keep the toolkits source-compatible; also,
hopefully, they'll make it into the SVR4 ABI, which will hopefully keep
them from indulging in Excess Creativity(TM) and making them
binary-incompatible.
Mark Valentine
>The frequency of MIT patch releases seems irrelevant unless SunSoft
>is planning to provide corresponding patch releases of OpenWindows
>version 3.X every few weeks or months, instead of once a year or so.
>Judging from the speed with which other vendors who have MIT-based
>servers update their product releases, this seems fairly unlikely.
>
>In other words, the fact that MIT provides patches every few weeks
>doesn't do me any good as a user of SunSoft's next OpenWindows system
>unless I have the source. Is SunSoft planning to distribute the
>source?
I see no alternative for the server/Xlib/Intrinsics. Sun feed back patches
and the X Consortium see to it that members get them in a timely manner and
the rest of us who care get the fixes we need "every few weeks".
As for OLIT, Sun must follow the lead which made XView so popular (apart
from its supposed ease of use), and donate the source (no doubt shortly after
X11R6, hopefully in time for the cut of the contrib tape :-). Maybe if we
all try to make our Sun suits understand that...
I did read into the statement the idea that Sun saw they could have thousands
of engineers throughout the world fixing their bugs for them!
Mark.
--
Mark Valentine, Spider Systems <ma...@spider.co.uk> /\oo/\
"Tigers will do ANYTHING for a tuna fish sandwich."
"We're kind of stupid that way."
Guy Harris
>from its supposed ease of use), and donate the source
Oh, yeah, right.
I presume you're aware of what happened the last time the USL lawyers
just *thought* somebody was trying to make AT&T/USL-derived code
publicly available - and in that case there's plenty of debate as to
whether there was any AT&T code left; OLIT was originally an AT&T/USL
production, and I'd say the chances are extremely good that there's
still plenty of AT&T/USL code there.
>Maybe if we all try to make our Sun suits understand that...
...it would be lots of fun to be sued by USL? I think a brief talk with
Keith Bostic would disabuse them of *that* notion pretty quickly.
If you want OLIT (or, at least, MoOLIT) source to be freely-available,
talk to USL. Good luck....
Mark Smith
> I think we'll also probably see the Fresco and DOE technologies
> filling the NeWS gap in the future.
I've never heard of Fresco and I don't see the connection between
DOE and NeWS at all. Can you explain what the "NeWS gap" is and
how these two will fill it?
---- Mark Smith ---- Canon Research Europe ---- sm...@canon.co.uk ----
Matt Landau
>As for OLIT, Sun must follow the lead which made XView so popular (apart
>from its supposed ease of use), and donate the source
Unlikely, since OLIT was originally developed by ATT, which (I believe)
still owns the source. Sun was able to make XView free because they wrote
it all; the same is not true of OLIT.
People considering a switch from XView to OLIT may want to consider this;
if you've grown accustomed to fixing XView bugs yourself, make sure you
understand what opportunities and/or constraints exist for OLIT source
availability before adopting it; I would expect the terms to be something
like the OSF terms for Motif source, but have never actually gone to the
trouble of finding out (since I'll never write another program using the
Intrinsics if I can help it).
Chuck Price
>I've never heard of Fresco and I don't see the connection between
>DOE and NeWS at all. Can you explain what the "NeWS gap" is and
>how these two will fill it?
>
Consortium. It is a platform and language independent environment
for constructing applications. Specifications have not yet been released
from the working group, but certain decisions have been made public,
to wit: 1) Fresco interfaces will be specified using the Object Management
Group's Interface Definition Language, 2) the system is intended to support
"distributed embedding", and 3) it defines a notion of structured graphics.
See the proceedings of the most recent X Conference for a paper
on the system, entitled "Building Distributed User Interfaces using Fresco."
SunSoft actively participates in the working group, and is heavily involved
in the Object Management Group.
I won't attempt to draw any connection between DOE, Fresco and NeWS.
DOE is an OMG CORBA* - based environment. Describing Fresco
interfaces using OMG's IDL is very much in line with on of the philosophies of
the OMG and DOE, which is that public interfaces should be described
separately from the implementation of those interfaces, allowing for
various implementation strategies, including the introduction of alternative
languages and distribution, without affecting the client interface to the
system.
-chuck
Fresco(TM) is a Registered Trademark of the MIT X Consortium.
* CORBA: Common Object Request Broker Architecture
---
=====================================================================
Chuck Price -------------
Sun Microsystems _\__(_)__/_
pr...@sun.com ./ \.
=====================================================================
Don Hopkins
From: pr...@chuckles.Eng.Sun.COM (Chuck Price)
In article 14...@canon.co.uk, sm...@canon.co.uk (Mark Smith) writes:
>I've never heard of Fresco and I don't see the connection between
>DOE and NeWS at all. Can you explain what the "NeWS gap" is and
>how these two will fill it?
One connection between DOE and NeWS was that Steve MacKay and Chuck
Price used to claim that SunSoft was going to implement DOE Display
Services using NeWS. I was right not to believe them.
Fresco(TM) is being developed by a working group within the MIT X
Consortium. It is a platform and language independent environment
for constructing applications. Specifications have not yet been released
from the working group, but certain decisions have been made public,
to wit: 1) Fresco interfaces will be specified using the Object Management
Group's Interface Definition Language, 2) the system is intended to support
"distributed embedding", and 3) it defines a notion of structured graphics.
Why don't you just buy NeXT Step, isn't that just what you and the
customers really want? Now that NeXT is concentrating on portable
system software instead of hardware, how far will NeXT Step have
advanced in the time it takes Sun and HP and OMG and the X Consortium
to get DOE and Fresco together? In other words: How many years will
it take SunSoft to catch up with what NeXT has today?
-Don
PS: Thanks for the "NeWS gap", Chuck.
"In what other industry can you get away with stating that you're as
good as the competition, rather than better? Especially when the
competition's product is more than four years old! ... It is an
unworthy design objective to aim for anything less than trying to do
to the Macintosh what the Macintosh did to the previous state of the
art." -Bill Buxton