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From: fgreco@govt.shearson.COM (Frank Greco)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: What's what in OPEN LOOK/OpenWindows (long)
Message-ID: <9009271651.AA08828@islanders.>
Date: 27 Sep 90 16:51:54 GMT
Sender: root@athena.mit.edu (Wizard A. Root)
Organization: The Internet
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>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.

	Huh?  Please don't tell all the companies on Wall Street, cuz 
	the vast majority of them are using Open Look (on Suns), not Motif.

	Sun's (actually SPARC's) large percentage of the workstation
	market will cause OPEN LOOK to have a higher percentage of the
	workstation UI "market".  It doesn't matter a bit what OSF
	does.  The market *always* decides the standard.  Why don't
	people learn from history?  Recall the Microsoft BASIC vs
	"real" BASIC battle just a few years ago.  Despite the
	standardness of real BASIC, Microsoft won the marketing 
	and numbers game.

	OPEN LOOK vs Motif will result in a similar decision.

>
>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.

	Yow!  What's your rationale for this?  I don't agree at all.
	There are more Microsoft GUI's (what's a Microsoft compatible
	GUI??) than X-based GUI's because there are many more PC's out
	there than workstations.  Over time, this will change.
	I would surmise at around 1996 or so, workstation shipments will
	match PC shipments... this is only an intuitive guessimation
	on my part based on current shipment data.
	
>
>Once we have come to this conclusion, we notice:
      ^^

	Whatta you mean "we" ?  I believe you mean "I".


>	- OL is not Microsoft compatible, and to make it so destroys its
>	  open-lookness.

	First of all, OPEN LOOK can be made to run on DOS.  It is a 
	user interface, not software.  I believe there are two companies
	out there that are developing an OL interface for DOS and/or
	OS/2 (there was some blurb in InfoRag or PC Weak about this recently).
	So OL can be implemented on a Microsoft platform; hence it
	can be "Microsoft compatible".
>	
>	- HP's CXI was nearly compatible, and DEC's could be force fitted
>	  to the HP CXI model.

	That sounds very elegant ;-)
>	
>The decision to go with a combined HP/DEC offering rather than an OL
>offering becomes obvious.

	Blech!  You weren't on the Debating Team at your school were you?   ;-)


Frank D. Greco - Consultant
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
|On Assignment at:                  |Office:                            |
| email: fgreco@shearson.com        | email: frank5@mars.njit.edu       |
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My comments reflect my own opinions, not my clients.