[9] in Open-Software-Foundation-News
OSF Flash - Motif an IEEE Standard
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (corpcom@osf.org)
Wed Jan 19 15:52:54 1994
Resent-From: Bill Cattey <wdc@MIT.EDU>
Resent-To: osf-news-mtg@menelaus.LOCAL
Date: Tue, 18 Jan 94 13:08:14 -0500
From: corpcom@osf.org
To: contacts-january@osf.org, eu-steering@osf.org, isv-steering@osf.org,
Date: Tue, 18 Jan, 94
To: OSF Members
From: corpcom@osf.org (OSF Corporate Communications)
Open Software Foundation
****************************************************
OSF ELECTRONIC FLASH
****************************************************
An electronic mail news flash for OSF Members from
the Open Software Foundation
January 18, 1994
This news was recently released to the press.
CONTACT: Jane Smeloff
Open Software Foundation
617 621-8997
OSF/Motif Officially Adopted As IEEE Standard
Industry confirms Motif as the formal GUI standard
CAMBRIDGE, MA January 17, 1994 - The Open Software
Foundation announced today that OSF/Motif has been
formally approved by a unanimous vote of the balloting
group of the IEEE Computer Society Standards Board as the
graphical user interface (GUI) standard P1295 - the
Modular Toolkit Environment. The final approval that was
received in December acknowledges Motif as the formal
open systems user interface standard.
The P1295 standard specification of more than six hundred
pages is derived from the OSF/Motif documentation set,
and specifies both the application programming interface
(API) and appearance and behavior (look and feel) for
Motif. Motif 1.2 is compliant with this new standard.
"This is an excellent example of how a membership-
supported open systems development group working closely
with a formal standards organization can produce a solid
solution to meet both vendor and user requirements,"
said Elizabeth Connolly, director of OSF's User
Environment Component. "This achievement is a clear
indication that OSF is on target, producing the right
technology and specifications needed for the open systems
graphical user environment. And we especially would like
to thank all OSF members who contributed to this IEEE
standard in the work group and in the balloting group."
"This project completes one of OSF's open systems
technology cycles," said John Morris, director of
liaisons and senior technical representative to worldwide
standards bodies for OSF. "The OSF/Motif technology came
about through an open process that selected Motif as
the premier technology in X Window System (tm) toolkits.
This was followed by a series of OSF software development
cycles that produced the reference technology,
specifications and a test suite. And finally, now that
Motif has been proven both as a technology and as an open
systems specification, a formal standard has been
derived from the OSF work and approved by the open,
voluntary process of the IEEE which assures the industry
of high quality, consensus standards," continued Morris.
The IEEE standards development process is based on
voluntary participation from technical industry experts
who form working groups, develop draft standards and meet
regularly, ensuring that a high degree of consensus is
maintained. Finally, when the draft achieves working
group consensus it is then balloted and after approval,
submitted to the IEEE Standards Board for acceptance.
In addition to IEEE approval, the Motif API specification
has also been submitted to X/Open's Fast-Track review
process. The Motif specification under X/Open review is
a superset consistent with the core functionality in
P1295, and also is derived from the OSF Motif
documentation. The X/Open version of the Motif
specification contains additional Motif features such as
drag-and-drop, internationalization and gadgets.
The Open Software Foundation is a not-for-profit research
and development organization with the objective of
enabling business users of information technology to
exploit that technology to fundamentally change and
improve the way they do business. OSF supplies software
to make information technology easier to learn and easier
to use, while enabling various vendors' equipment to work
together, and information and applications to be accessed
and shared across distributed, open computing
environments. OSF has created a coalition of vendors and
users working together, using an innovative open process,
to find and implement the best, most relevant
technologies from organizations throughout the world.
Headquartered in Cambridge, MA, the OSF has over 400
members and 300 employees worldwide.
###
OSF, OSF/1, Motif, and Open Software Foundation are
trademarks of the Open Software Foundation, Inc.
X Window System is a trademark of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology.
Copyright 1994, Open Software Foundation, Inc. All
rights reserved.
*****************************************************
Donna Esterling, Editor Promotional Programs Mgr
Open Software Foundation email: newsnug@osf.org
11 Cambridge Center phone: 617-621-8700
Cambridge, MA 02142 USA fax: 617-621-0631
c/o OSF Electronic Bulletin
Comments to the editor can be sent to:
newsnug@osf.org
E-mail additions and changes can be sent to:
bulletin-request@osf.org
*****************************************************
