It is a great News for OpenDX and other GUI apps developers. Starting today MOTIF goes OpenSource, at least for Linux and other GPL'ed OS, as the Press Release from OSF reads.
Suhaib The Open Group Announces Public License for Motif Menlo Park, CA - May 15th, 2000 - The Open GroupTM, a vendor and technology-neutral consortium dedicated to enterprise integration, announced today that it is releasing the source code of MotifR, using a public license, to the Open Source community. "As the graphical user interface toolkit of choice on UNIXR systems, Motif is the most successful technology available today for heterogeneous platforms," said Allen Brown, President and CEO of The Open Group. "We want to support the momentum of Open Source operating systems such as LinuxR and FreeBSD by developing an Open MotifR licence for use with Open Source operating systems." This license will allow the release of the Motif source code, as a product called Open Motif, for use, reproduction and distribution on operating systems that are themselves Open Source programs, such as Linux and FreeBSD, without the payment of royalties. The license can be found at http://www.opengroup.org/openmotif/license. Supporters of Open Motif initiative include: Imperial Software Technology (IST) (www.ist.co.uk), Integrated Computer Solutions (ICS) (www.ics.com), KL Group (www.klgroup.com), and Metro Link (www.metrolink.com). "As the creators of X-DesignerR, the world's leading Motif GUI builder, we're delighted to have assisted The Open Group in preparing Open Motif for release," said Derek Lambert, CEO of Imperial Software Technology. "The advent of Open Motif extends the reach of standards-based, professional user interface technology to the new free operating system platforms which will materially assist in the acceptance of Linux and FreeBSD in the corporate networked application environment." ICS, the company that The Open Group has employed for over two years to support the Motif source code licensees, will also be supporting Open Motif. Mark Hatch, Chief Operating Officer of ICS commented "Customers of our Builder Xcessory PRO product, the industry leading user interface development environment for UNIX and Linux systems, have been waiting for the open source community to embrace Motif before initiating their ports to Linux. Today's announcement of Open Motif is key to getting Linux out of the backroom and onto the desktop running the business critical applications of the enterprise. Without a doubt, this announcement means more success for Linux in the enterprise." "The release of Open Motif is great news for Motif and Open Source communities," said Dennis MacNeil, product marketing manager for KL Group. "Open Motif is an enterprise-ready, industrial strength toolkit that will enable software developers to deliver powerful mission-critical applications to Open Source platforms like Linux and FreeBSD. The market leader in Motif widgets, KL Group has been committed to the advancement of Motif development for more than 10 years. In support of The Open Group initiative, we have produced one of the first versions of Open Motif to allow developers to access the source code. Open Motif will be freely available from The Open Group and KL Group's Web site." "Motif has long been a useful, popular tool for developers. Since 1991, Metro Link has been porting, testing and producing packages for Motif. Metro Link was the first company to ship a commercial product on Linux, that being Motif. Metro Link Motif has been certified by one of the most popular database vendors as the most stable supported graphical interface available," said Morgan Von Essen, Metro Link CEO and President. "Now that version 2.1 is freely available on open source systems, Metro Link believes that even more developers will be attracted to the Motif environment with its reliability and portability. We are fully committed to standards-based open source development. This movement by The Open Group is a significant demonstration of the open source community's effort to establish universal standards for key software products." Those wishing to distribute Open Motif are invited to become Supporters of the Open Motif initiative. They are required to provide a binary version of the Open Motif products for an Open Source operating system on the central web site being hosted by The Open Group. The source of Open Motif is available now at http://www.opengroup.org/openmotif. About Motif Motif is the industry standard graphical user interface (GUI) available on more than 200 hardware and software platforms. It is the de facto graphical user interface on UNIX systems in heterogeneous networked computing environments. Motif is fully specified by the IEEE 1295 standard, providing application developers, system vendors, and end users with a stable, mature and reliable environment for application presentation on a wide range of platforms. Motif is also the base graphical user interface for the Common Desktop Environment (CDE) and a number of other desktops. The current release of Motif is 2.1.30. (For more information, visit http://www.opengroup.org/motif). About Open Source For more information on Open Source, including the Open Source Definition, visit the Open Source Initiative web site at http://www.opensource.org/osd.html. About The X Window System The X Window System, supporting Motif, provides the only common windowing environment bridging the heterogeneous platforms in today's enterprise computing. The X Window System is the most successful Open Source collaborative technology developed to date and is the de facto standard graphical engine for Linux and UNIX systems. The inherent independence of the X Window System from the operating system and hardware has made it widely available and deployed, in use on over 20 million desktops worldwide. The current release is X11R6.4. (For more information, visit www.x.org). About The Open Group The Open Group, a vendor and technology-neutral consortium, is committed to delivering greater business efficiency by bringing together buyers and suppliers of information systems to lower the cost and risks associated with integrating new technology across the enterprise. The Open Group's mission is to deliver assurance of conformance to Open Standards through the testing and certification of suppliers' products. More information on the organization can be found at http://www.opengroup.org/ UNIX and Motif are registered trademarks of The Open Group in the US and other countries. The Open Group and the X Window System are trademarks of The Open Group. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. Editorial Contact: Sean Egusa, [EMAIL PROTECTED], MacKenzie Kesselring Inc. (503) 225-0725 3
