From: fyl@ssc.com (Phil Hughes) Subject: more info on WABI (and PWI) Date: 7 Jun 1993 20:48:11 GMT
In light of the discussion of writing "WABI" for Linux, I found some
interesting information that may help point the way. One person suggested
licensing WABI from Sun but there appears to be an alternative.
The lead article in the May 19 issue of UniNews (published by UniForum) is
titled _Sun And Allies Break Windows: Wabi's more than an attempt to
co-opt technology_. It discusses the Sun press conference of May 5
pointing out that the purpose of Wabi is to plug MS-Windows applications
into X and bypass the MS-DOS file sytem (and, of course, Microsoft code).
Now, some interesting facts:
* Wabi was a joint development of SunSelect and USL
* Scott McNealy, Sun CEO, talked about a pre-WABI initiative
called the Public Windows Interface (PWI). According to SunSelect,
"The goal of creating PWI is to define a standard API for Microsoft
Windows applications". This standard would make it harder for
Microsoft to redefine the standard as they go and screw over other
vendors.
* Roel Pieper, CEO of USL said "End users are afraid of lock-in by
Microsoft APIs".
* Ed Zander, president of SunSoft defined Wabi as "an implemtation
of PWI" and said that there can be other such implementations.
* Eric Schmidt, president of SunTech Enterprises, said "Wabi contains
no Microsoft intellectual property"
* Andy Halford, SunSelect director of engineering, said "We believe
there's a grass-roots movement to protect the software investments of
ISVs and users".
Seems like Sun would like to see "us unimportant hackers" join the
anti-Windoze war to support their assertions about grass-roots.
And, the good news, "Sun and its allies will submit a PWI document to
X/Open to consider for formal specification.
--
Phil Hughes, SSC, Inc. P.O. Box 55549, Seattle, WA 98155 (206)FOR-UNIX
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