Insiders say one issue of concern raised at the recent Open Software Foundation Common Desktop Environment special interest group meeting was continued use of SunSoft Inc’s ToolTalk inter-application messaging system, already part of CDE 1.0’s make-up. Apparently some users that already have Hewlett-Packard Co’s Broadcast Message Server mechanism are concerned about running two different messaging daemons if they have to use ToolTalk via their adoption of an X/Open Co Ltd standard based on the existing CDE 1.0 specification. Although the Foundation could do an application programming interface for a future Common Desktop that will support both approaches, much of the environment’s windowing apparently relies on the use of ToolTalk. The Foundation is taking the temperature on the idea of a full-blown Pre-Structured Technology process for future Common Desktop iterations. Despite calls from X/Open’s desktop requirements group, there was no talk of adding Windows interoperability to the environment.
