The Open Software Foundation denies a scathing front-page story in last week’s Communications Week that practically writes off its Distributed Management Environment, charging it with being late, possibly too late to matter much to the market, and with causing in-fighting between the Foundation’s technology suppliers. The story goes so far as to suggest that Hewlett-Packard Co threatened to resign from the Foundation over the pace of development but changed its mind. The Software Foundation on the other hand contends that the complex software is on schedule for the next phase, its Distributed Services Release due in September. Most of the technology going into this third snapshot will be wrapped up in the second quarter, according to business area manager Jon Gossels. He says the development and engineering plans, along with a set of milestones and documentation were published along with the second snapshot towards the end of last year and sent to 50 early access members, arguing that the schedule and adherence to it is known and calculable. The next part, the Management Framework, is set for release by the end of the year. Although Gossels says it looks good today, he acknowledges that the Framework is at a different stage, is difficult to assess and that substantial work remains to be done. The Software Foundation is doing the final integration and testing of DME because, it is said, it couldn’t get any of its members to take the job after the tussel IBM Corp had integrating DCE. However it appears that five of DME’s technology providers including Tivoli Systems Inc, Hewlett-Packard, Gradient Technologies Inc, IBM and Systems Center Inc are modifying their components and making changes on the Foundation’s behalf so they will fit. Gossels admits tensions rise because people resist change, especially to their own work. He dismisses the notion that these reactions were either bad or a surprise. Although there are 45 OSFers and 105 outsiders working on the project, Gossels said at least one of these, Hewlett-Packard, is working without a contract but that is perfectly normal at the Foundation. Integration contracts weren’t signed until after the code was released. There are of course difficulties merging technologies as varied as Hewlett-Packard’s and Tivoli’s, which is object-oriented. However, Gossels maintains the Foundation and its partners foresaw the hurdles and prepared against them in advance. It’s premature to talk about DME losing market, What alternative do they have, he asks.
