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From: cjc@ulysses.att.com (Chris Calabrese)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x.motif,comp.windows.open-look,comp.windows.x,comp.windows.misc
Subject: Re: Question for net.views column in UNIX Today!
Summary: GUI standards and the marketplace
Message-ID: <14566@ulysses.att.com>
Date: 2 Apr 91 14:38:43 GMT
References: <9104020203.AA00284@bud.cs.ubc.ca.ubc.ca>
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Oh boy, Oh boy, a flame war!  Goody, goody, goody! :-)

bud.cs.ubc.ca!lowe@uunet.UU.NET (David Lowe) writes:
>
>Re: Is a single GUI standard really necessary?
>
>
>Yes.  The competition between Motif and Open Look is destroying the
>development of the Unix software market.  Most university sites have
>just washed their hands of the whole thing and use neither interface.
>The complexity of developing for both Motif and Open Look is a
>tremendous waste of effort, and it is causing most developers to
>put off development until the situation clears up.  If there was an
>agreement on standards, it would open up a huge new market as there
>are so many programmers who are trained in using Unix.  Development
>of interfaces in the University environment is stalled because we
>are faced with 3 choices (Athena widgets, Motif, Open Look).

So far, most of the commercial applications I've seen running
under X Windows haven't used Motif or Open Look.

Most have used some home-grown toolkit.  More often than not
this toolkit gives the application a look and feel much closer to
SunView than anything else.

If a commercial application writer really wants to target Motif and
Open Look, they should use something like the Solbourne toolkit which
provides both Motif and Open Look with the same binary (this is not a
plug for Solbourne, they just did it first).

As far as university software, I would expect it to be built on the
best of the freely available toolkits.  This instantly rules out both
OSF Motif and AT&T's Open Look toolkit.
What's basically left behind are Sun's XView,
Athena Widgets, and InterViews.

Athena Widgets are ugly.
InterViews locks you into C++.
XView locks you into Open Look.
All, however, are freely available and have a solid commitment to
future developement behind them.

>I can hardly believe that Sun, which did so much to start the open
>systems movement, is now doing everything it can to force its own
>interface onto its customers.  Sun is still the hardware of choice
>for universities, but whenever I visit other universities I hear
>nothing but anger at Sun's refusal to adopt the same interface that
>was selected by other major manufacturers.  It is behaving in the
>way that IBM used to, and this will cost it dearly in the long run.
>At the moment, it is being just successful enough to thoroughly
>confuse its own users and make them avoid adopting any GUI.

Well, I must admit that I don't think Sun has behaved very well in
some instances, but then I still think that they're doing _much_
better than many other vendors that shall remain nameless (for
specific anecdotes, send me e-mail).

Did it cross anybody's mind that Motif was developed _after_ Open Look
and that OSF didn't even consider Open Look when they made their GUI
selections?  I won't even mention the legal issues of what will happen
to Motif if Apples wins their litigation with Microsoft and HP.

I guess that stuff's really important in the scheme of things, but I had
to say it.  Personally, I can't stand the way Motif looks or feels.
It just isn't as well thought out as Open Look.  On the other hand,
Open Look isn't the be-all end-all of look and feels either.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it wold be a crime to settle on
either one of these as _the_standard_for_all_time.
Should the world have standardized on the original interface for the Mac?
On the Xerox Star?  On the AT&T 7300 (aka Unix PC and 3b1)?
On the Athena Widgets?

Personally, I don't have any trouble moving back and forth between
Open Look, Motif, Mac, Athena, InterViews and others.  When I do get
fouled up, however, it's because the menu bars are on button 1 for
some toolkits and button 3 for others.  This kind of stuff should be
standardized.

That's what I love about standards, there's so many of them.
Name:			Christopher J. Calabrese
Brain loaned to:	AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ
att!ulysses!cjc		cjc@ulysses.att.com
Obligatory Quote:	``pher - gr. vb. to schlep.  phospher - to schlep light.philosopher - to schlep thoughts.''