The Open Software Foundation’s OSF/1 is so far behind Unix System V.4 that its backers are having to dream up ever more aggressive strategies to get the thing widely used, and DEC is working up a plan to offer its implementation of the Unix-derived operating to run on machines built around Sun Microsystems Inc’s Sparc RISC as well as on its own MIPS Computer Systems Inc RISC-based DECstations and servers. DEC’s aim would be to end the situation where Unix System V.4 and the Sparc are synonymous, and offer Sun customers the prospect that applications developed on Sparc machines under OSF/1 could be transferred to DEC’s own machines, Electronic News suggests. DEC already offers the Foundation’s Motif user interface on Sun machines, but DEC says that any decision to do a version of OSF/1 for the Sparc will only be taken at the end of this year its top priority now is to get it working on its own machines.
