Both the Open Software Foundation and Unix International Inc applied for, and were accepted for membership of X/Open Group Ltd at X/Open board meeting in Japan last week, as reported briefly (CI No 1,180). X/Open president Geoff Morris said that the move simply reflects market forces – customers are demanding systems from different vendors that work together, and X/Open membership carries with it a committment to develop such systems. Although both groups had previously expressed their intensions to comply to X/Open guidelines, membership of X/Open will provide a new channel for further negotiations between the two groups. Open Software Foundation spokesman David Chinn, interviewed at the Multi User Computer Show in Toronto last week, said that it would foster a greater interaction between the two groups. And as Chinn pointed out, interaction at workgroup level is already going on: the Unix International workgroup on multi-processing, headed by Gerry Popek of Locus Computing Corp is working with Foundation members on the team, according to the organisation’s chief David Tory. Acceptance of both the true blue AT&T Unix backer Unix International and the renegade Foundation will go some way to comforting users dismayed at the Unix schism.
