Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!hp-pcd!hpcvlx!ben
From: ben@hpcvlx.cv.hp.com (Benjamin Ellsworth)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: What's what in OPEN LOOK/OpenWindows (long)
Message-ID: <100920250@hpcvlx.cv.hp.com>
Date: 19 Sep 90 15:50:25 GMT
References: <9009171845.AA02659@kimba.Eng.Sun.COM>
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Co., Corvallis, OR, USA
Lines: 43


> As a matter of morbid curiosity, has OSF ever made the reasoning that
> lead to their choice of a combination of elements from DEC, HP and
> Microsoft public?

I'll be interested to read an official OSF statement myself.  In the
meantime, here's my personal opinion of why OL didn't make it.

Given:
	- Multi-tasking Commercial/Business workstations are a hot market;
	  perhaps *the* hot workstation market for the next decade.

	- These workstations should be running un*x.

	- The current single tasking workstations are either MSDOS or
	  Mac's.
	
	- Microsoft appears to be much more open (and less anxious to
	  litigate) than Apple.

It seems quite reasonable to conclude:
	- Microsoft compatible GUI's are going to be much more acceptable
	  to the Commercial/Business folks that some new unknown
	  interface.

Once we have come to this conclusion, we notice:
	- OL is not Microsoft compatible, and to make it so destroys its
	  open-lookness.
	
	- HP's CXI was nearly compatible, and DEC's could be force fitted
	  to the HP CXI model.
	
The decision to go with a combined HP/DEC offering rather than an OL
offering becomes obvious.

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