---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Florida SunFlash NeXTSTEP/OpenStep FAQ SunFLASH Vol 66 #82 June 1994 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Electronic Journal For Sun Users Since 1988 John J. Mclaughlin, Publisher & Editor - flash@sun.com ____________________________________________________________________________ 66.82 NeXTSTEP/OpenStep FAQ From: Lil.Mohan@Corp.sun.com (Lil Mohan) Draft. Rev 04 (06/20/94) The FAQ is in three sections: I. SUN-NeXT PARTNERSHIP ISSUES II. THE PRODUCTS III. OTHER PRODUCT-RELATED ISSUES (274 lines) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- I. SUN-NeXT PARTNERSHIP ISSUES: ================================ Why did Sun choose to partner with NeXT ? NEXTSTEP is the leading object-oriented application development environment, and the industry needs a robust and proven standard for object-oriented application development. NeXT has pioneered the commercial use of objects for application development. Why did NeXT choose to partner with Sun ? Sun has the industry's leading RISC (SPARC) architecture and Sun has the best implementation of UNIX (with the best networking technology included) , and is pioneering the commercial use of OMG (Object Management Group) technology. Together, we believe we can develop the industry standard for object-oriented enterprise solutions. What is the nature of the Sun-NeXT partnership? Sun is licensing some of NeXT's technology, and is taking a small equity position in NeXT to cement the relationship. Sun is not taking a seat on NeXT's Board of Directors. Will Sun and NeXT compete with each other ? Both Sun and NeXT will have products based on the OpenStep spec., so they will compete with each other, in the same way that all UNIX vendors compete with each other. Both versions will run on SPARCstations. What does this partnership mean for the computer industry ? Sun and NeXT are teaming up to create the volume object standard. It will take years for any other object-oriented application environment to match the capabilities and the maturity of NEXTSTEP. NeXT's decision to open up its API and license the OpenStep specification freely has removed the only major objection to NEXTSTEP, which was that it had been proprietary. The OMG architecture is clearly the industry standard for distributed object systems, and Sun's Project DOE has built the highest performance OMG-compliant distributed object system in the industry today. The combination of these technologies will accelerate time-to-market for a superior object-oriented distributed application environment. The open interfaces will allow it to become a broadly accepted standard. II. THE PRODUCTS: ================== What products are coming out of this partnership? NEXTSTEP on SPARC: NeXT and Sun's SPARC Technology Business are jointly developing a native NEXTSTEP port to SPARC. Expected to ship "early" CY95. OpenStep, with Project DOE, on Solaris: The port of the operating-system-independent subset of NEXTSTEP onto the Solaris OS, along with the OMG standard CORBA object request broker implementation running on Solaris. Expected to ship "early" CY95. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Object Apps Object Apps Object Apps ----------- ----------- ----------- NEXTSTEP NEXTSTEP OpenStep, with Project DOE ----------- ----------- ----------- MACH OS MACH OS Solaris ----------- ----------- ----------- Intel X86 SPARC SPARC ----------- ----------- ----------- Available Today ----- Available "Early" CY95 ---- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Considering that both NEXTSTEP on SPARC and OpenStep on Solaris are going to be available at the same time, which one should I buy? The two products satisfy separate market requirements. Users can choose the product that best fits their requirements: NEXTSTEP on SPARC is fully compatible with NEXTSTEP on Intel/NeXT. It will run ALL current applications on NEXTSTEP on Intel/NeXT with just a recompile. This product is ideal for users that have NEXTSTEP applications currently deployed on PCs (or NeXT boxes). (However, since the OS is Mach, the environment cannot run other generic Windows or UNIX applications directly). OpenStep is Solaris based - so the user can run the entire gamut of Solaris applications alongside NEXTSTEP applications on the same desktop. Also, since the applications are written to OpenStep specs., they will be able to easily utilize the Distributed Object System. (However, moving NEXTSTEP apps. from Intel/NeXT to this environment requires some non-trivial porting effort). What applications run where? All NEXTSTEP apps. that are currently running on PC's will run (with just a recompile) on the NEXTSTEP on SPARC environment. Most of these NEXTSTEP apps. will run on OpenStep on Solaris (but this involves a little porting effort). See the OpenStep documentation for details. What is PDO? PDO stands for Portable Distributed Objects. This product was developed by NeXT as a way to make NEXTSTEP applications to be partially distributed. PDO makes it possible to deploy certain NEXTSTEP objects onto non-NEXTSTEP server machines. PDO2.0 is now available for Solaris, OSF/1 and HP-UX servers. (The PDO for Solaris announcement is being made at NEXTSTEP Expo). For more details on PDO, please contact the spokesperson from NeXT. How do OMG's CORBA and NeXT's PDO fit together ? Both CORBA and PDO support communication between objects over a network, so there is some overlap, but each approach has its own strengths. NeXT will continue to support PDO for all its customers. NeXT has previously announced its intention to support CORBA, and licensing Sun's CORBA implementation will allow NeXT to deliver an OMG-conformant object request broker sooner. Ultimately, NeXT and Sun intend to integrate these two technologies. Will existing NEXTSTEP applications run in an OpenStep environment ? Some existing NEXTSTEP applications may use more than the operating-system-independent subset of NEXTSTEP that is included in the OpenStep specification, so minor modifications would be necessary to be portable to all implementations of the OpenStep specification. We have a white-paper to assist developers in learning about the NeXT object system and begin designing their object applications such that they can be easily migrated to the OpenStep environment. Who is doing which portions of the development work? NeXT is building the NEXTSTEP on SPARC product. (They are being provided with engineering assistance from the STB division of Sun). OpenStep on Solaris is being developed inhouse by SunSoft. PDO2.0 is a product built by NeXT. It will be available from NeXT. From whom do I buy what? NEXTSTEP for INTEL: NeXT PDO for Solaris: NeXT NEXTSTEP for SPARC: NeXT, and Sun Channels OpenStep with DOE for Solaris: Sun Specifically, will Sun price-list NEXTSTEP on SPARC? NEXTSTEP on SPARC will be available from Sun distribution channels. III. OTHER PRODUCT-RELATED ISSUES: =================================== You had announced that you would publish the OpenStep Specs by 6/30/94. Is that still on track? Yes, we will publish a version of the OpenStep spec on June 30th, as previously announced. In addition, an updated, final version of the spec (with a few minor corrections and additions) will be published by September 30th, and will be submitted to an appropriate standards body such as OMG or X/Open (as yet unannounced). Please obtain the spec directly from NeXT. When will OpenStep be integrated with DOE? OpenStep will be integrated with DOE in the DOE First Release, scheduled for delivery in Early 1995. However, for developers who wish to get a head-start on OpenStep applications now, the OpenStep Developer Starter Kit is available from SunSoft. This kit allows developers to become familiar with the OpenStep APIs and begin creating OpenStep-compliant applications that will be easily moved to OpenStep on Solaris when it becomes available. Developers using the OpenStep on Solaris product will be able to write applications that leverage both OpenStep and OMG technology. Why is OpenStep important to developing applications for DOE? Why isn't CDE enough? DOE (including OpenStep) is targeted at developers who wish to create DISTRIBUTED applications using a much more powerful set of tools than available today. OpenStep, with its object-oriented development paradigm, enables developers to create robust applications quickly with a set of pre-defined, reusable objects. CDE is targeted at developers who wish to optimize portability across multiple Unix platforms. Is OpenStep superceding the CDE desktop? Isn't Sun's strategy in this area confused? It is very clear that in today's world, "one size doesn't fit all" when it comes to development tools and environments. Sun is advancing the state of the art in several directions. All applications developed using either the CDE or DOE tools will run on the same desktop simultaneously. Developers have a choice, depending upon their optimization point. Users receive the benefit of better applications. Both environments will be continued to be supported by Sun. Will Sun support Objective C ? Sun will support Objective C in the same way that it supports a variety of other programming languages. One of the great strengths of OMG's CORBA architecture is that objects written in different programming languages can assembled together easily to produce distributed applications. ********************************************************************** For information about SunFlash send mail to info-sunflash@Sun.COM. Subscription requests should be sent to sunflash-request@Sun.COM. For last month's digest, send email to flashadm@sun.com with a Subject line of 65.00 For Gopher and WAIS access: sunsite.unc.edu. (Login as 'gopher' for a simple gopher client, 'swais' for a simple WAIS client (over 500 databases). All prices, availability, and other statements relating to Sun or third party products are valid in the U.S. only. Please contact your local Sales Representative for details of pricing and product availability in your region. Descriptions of, or references to products or publications within SunFlash does not imply an endorsement of that product or publication by Sun Microsystems. 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