Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!rutgers!sun-barr!olivea!mintaka!bloom-beacon!statsci.UUCP!vonn From: vonn@statsci.UUCP (Vonn Marsch) Newsgroups: comp.windows.x Subject: (Yet another) OpenLook vs. Motif Article by (yet) an(other) Expert Message-ID: <9010162329.AA12330@statsci.com> Date: 16 Oct 90 23:29:59 GMT Sender: daemon@athena.mit.edu (Mr Background) Organization: The Internet Lines: 90 This group has seen yet another surge of articles about the relative dominance of OpenLook and Motif, most of them focusing on how many machines at various trade shows sport one or the other faux standard. These articles contain such statements as: > ... at Wall Street's most popular financial/commercial show, Motif trounced > Open Look by a 10 to 1 margin! The author of the above report should be reminded that the balloting in the GUI election doesn't take place at trade shows. There will, in fact, be no balloting in any sense -- my prediction is that neither of OpenLook nor Motif will become a "standard". It seems to me that subscribers to this news group read and write articles on this subject in a desperate attempt to divine and/or influence the movement towards a standard; perhaps because they like one or the other, but more likely because it makes a our lives easier to have *one* standard. I personally have more of an interest in a single standard than most X programmers because I have to write all of my X code twice, once for Motif and once for OpenLook. This situation has made me bitter. Most of my bitterness is directed at two organizations: UNIX International and The Open Software Foundation. Do not be fooled: regardless of what they say, neither of these organizations wants a "standard"; what they want is a "monopoly". This is, as I see it, part of a growing trend of MicroSoftization in the UNIX industry. In my opinion, and I'm sure many of you will agree, the right way, what ought to be the "UNIX way", to establish a standard is the way X became a standard. One reason X is a standard is because the source code is free. Now, I don't believe all software should be free (I'm not a FSF-style Software Socialist -- I make my living from commercial software), but I do feel that standard software for interoperability ought to be free; mostly because it benefits everyone in this industry (and the consumer). (An analogy for this viewpoint would be believing in the idea of private property while at the same time supporting free access to roads and telephone lines.) The remainder of my bitterness is directed at myself and others like me (meaning "the X community") for not holding out to for a real standard and instead being cowed by UI and OSF into choosing (or, in my case, hedging) between OpenLook and Motif. My grim prediction is that we won't have a standard unless UI and OSF agree to negotiate a comprimise. I know that many of us hope that market pressures, i.e. consumer demand, will drive Motif or OpenLook out; but this is almost too much to hope for. But, for a moment, let's assume that market pressure could drive one of them out. Which would it be? Many recent articles tried to make a case for Motif driving out OpenLook, siting incidences of SPARCstations showing Motif at trade shows. As I mentioned earlier, though, this is not where the election will be won. According to the October 1990 issue of Personal Workstation, applications being shipped that conform to OpenLook outnumber Motif applications more than 3 to 1 (55 to 17, to be exact). The other factor in OpenLook's favor is consumer inertia, a force that is an order of magnitude stronger than consumer demand. A few articles back someone posted that the dominant GUI would be determined by vendor software (which, as I mentioned above, is in OpenLook's favor) not by vendor hardware. This notion could not be more mistaken. From experience, I know that computer users have a strong tendency to use the software that comes with the machines, and as long as Sun has 50+% of the workstation market, OpenLook will be in use more than Motif. I'm certain this is a fact that is not lost on the producers of the 55 applications available for OpenLook. Consider this: Which is the windowing system most used on workstations today? I would not at all be surprised if the answer were "SunView". A vast majority of our Sun customers (reletively computer-sophisticated statisticians) continued to use SunView or Suntools long after X11 was widely available. Was it because SunView was better? or because SunView was the "industry standard"? No, SunView came with their computer, and page one of their User's Manual said, "Startup Sunview." And, although it is pure fantasy to think that this could in any way influence the GUI market, I think that OpenLook is better than Motif, if marginally so. This is from the an aesthetic standpoint (it plain looks and feels better) and from my experience programming with Motif's tooklit (albeit version 1.0) and the OpenLook Intrinsics Toolkit (OLIT is better organized and documented). To summerize: We blew it by accepting OpenLook and Motif to the extent we have. Don't expect either of them to disappear anytime soon. Don't expect OpenLook to ever disappear without Sun Microsystem's consent (or over its corporate dead body). We are the only ones who can fight for a true standard, but time's a wastin'. Flame on, Vonn Marsch Statistical Sciences, Inc. vonn@statsci.com (206)283-8802