Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!yale!mintaka!spdcc!tauxersvilli!alphalpha!nazgul
From: nazgul@alphalpha.com (Kee Hinckley)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: What's what in OPEN LOOK/OpenWindows (long)
Message-ID: <1990Sep19.172151.7331@alphalpha.com>
Date: 19 Sep 90 17:21:51 GMT
References: <9009171845.AA02659@kimba.Eng.Sun.COM>
Organization: asi
Lines: 52

Some nits and questions.

In article <9009171845.AA02659@kimba.Eng.Sun.COM> hvr@eng.sun.COM (Heather Rose) writes a lot:
>     widely used window systems on UNIX.  It was one of the first window 
>     systems to deal with the problems of multiple processes and address 
>     spaces. SunWindows was first released in 1983.  The SunView user interface
It lagged Apollo's Display Manager by several years in dealing with that "problem".
I guess if there was nothing inbetween that counts as "one of the first".

>     at no charge (the GUI L&F is free).  With many companies suing over
>     L&F copyright and others charging outrageous rates just to use their
>     L&F (not the implementation, just the specification), these were basic
What company is charging for using the L&F?

>     About one month after OPEN LOOK was announced to be the user interface
>     for System 5 Release 4, the OSF began an RFT (Request for Technology) 
Is it a required part of 5.4?  I thought they backed off of that.

>     process for what is now called OSF/Motif.  OPEN LOOK was submitted by 
>     AT&T to the OSF as a candidate for the graphical user interface 
>     specification and style guide.  About one to two months later, OSF 
>     announced the Motif decision.  Motif is a combination of technologies
Five months.

>XView's foundation is similar to Xt in that they both provide a way to
>do subclassing in C.  However, the implementation is significantly
Is that foundation availble to non-toolkit writers who wish to add a
"widget"?

>Don't know.  Also, all the SunView OPEN LOOK applications (I can only think
>of four) are being ported to X11/OPEN LOOK, so it's a moot point.  However, 
>the real reason for the large number of applications for OPEN LOOK is the 
>volume of Sun and Sun-compatible machines already on the market and the 
This doesn't necessarily follow.  As others have pointed out, there are a number
of applications shipping (even as their first machine!) on Sun machines
that use Motif rather than Open Look.

>One can be portable between OPEN LOOK and Motif with either careful
>coding structure (perhaps there are GUI-builder tools to address this
>point, or special toolkits) or by using Xt-based toolkits which provide 
>a very similar API.  
I haven't seen any of those yet :-).

						-kee
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I'm not sure which upsets me more; that people are so unwilling to accept
responsibility for their own actions, or that they are so eager to regulate
everyone else's.