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- ANNOUNCEMENT AND INVITATION TO AN INDUSTRY WORKSHOP -

INDUSTRY WORKSHOP on Interchange and Application Interoperability

OSF is undertaking the GAIA project to provide a standard architecture
and API to support interchange and application interoperability across X
and non-X information environments.  Among the areas we expect to
address are:

    -- Transparent Conversion -- to allow filters to transparently
       provide format conversion for applications that have no common
       formats.

    -- Dynamic Updating -- to allow applications to arrange for
       unidirectional and bidirectional notifications about
       incremental changes in state.

    -- Embedded Applications -- to allow applications to provide
       sub-windows in which other clients can support editing of
       embedded data within compound documents.

    -- Linking Services -- to set up links among objects or regions
       of objects, for purposes of coordinating traversal, viewing,
       and dynamic updating.

    -- Groupware Services -- to support applications that allow
       multiple users to simultaneously act on the same information,
       obtaining feedback about the actions of other users

    -- Scripting Services -- to allow users to save, edit, and
       replay sequences of actions that span multiple applications 

This technology will be developed using an open process, open to the
entire computer industry, with a core team of architects consisting
of OSF employees, consultants and qualified sabbaticals made up of
both OSF and non-OSF members.

Within appropriate environments, we expect the architecture may
include standard OMG technology to the extent to which it is
available, including CORBA implementations, and OMG-compliant
object services.

Part of the work to be done may affect conventions and components
maintained by the X Consortium.  In particular, additional ICCCM and
Xt work is needed to support embedded applications.  OSF, with the
help of participating companies, would work with the X Consortium to
deal with these issues in the standard way.

Each X or Xt based toolkit, may need to make new facilities
available through its user interface, and OSF, with its members,
would address the work needed specifically to support Motif.

However, in addition, there is a significant amount of software that
may need to be developed, particularly to support links to regions
of objects.  Where possible, we intend this work to be done by the
core team as well, and made available separately from Motif.

The details of the process to be used to deliver this technology are
subject to change, but the plan is roughly the following:

Request for Information: ASAP
        A request will be made to the industry for submission of
        information pertaining to architectures and specifications for
        application interoperability and information interchange.

Workshop: August 18-19
        An Application Interoperability Workshop will be held in
        Cambridge open to the computer industry at large.  Following
        initial presentations, most of the workshop will consist of
        breakout groups aimed at defining technical requirements,
        identifying issues, and proposing architectural frameworks.

Development of Architecture and Specifications:
        A core team at OSF, made up of OSF employees, consultants and   
        sabbaticals* from the computer industry, under the guidance and
        control of OSF will develop the architecture and specifications,
        using responses from the Request For Information.  Drafts of the
        architecture and the specifications will be circulated for comment.

Implementation:
        OSF will develop an implementation.  The implementation will be
        made available to the industry as other OSF technologies.  Where
        appropriate, OSF will issue a request for technologies to meet the
        specification.  This work will be undertaken in parallel with, but
        independent of the next release of OSF/Motif.

WORKSHOP PARTICIPANTS:

Business operations and technical representative(s) from each
company will be invited to attend the discussion scheduled for
August 18-19, 1992.  Each company representative will be expected to
engage in a discussion about the technical requirements, issues and
architectural framework necessary to construct a specification and
development plan.

The workshop will be held at a local Cambridge, MA hotel, accessible
by public transportation.  An agenda and details of the workshop
will be sent out at a later date.  A registration fee of $75 will be
charged to help offset the cost of meals and meeting facilities.
All of those registered will be placed in a mailing group for future
email messages.  Please DON'T FORGET to include your email address.
Please provide the following information.  You may email all
registration material to "bhuie@osf.org".

NAME:   

Company:

Address:


Telephone:

FAX:

email:

Technical or Business:

The REGISTRATION FEE of $75.00 may be paid by check or credit card
at the time of registration or on the first day of the workshop.  No
purchase orders will be accepted.


To all Interested Parties considering SABBATICALS:

Attached find a solicitation for assistance in the future
development activity surrounding OSF/Motif*.  This document was
distributed at a meeting on Wednesday, 6/17 at the Xhibition
tradeshow and should be widely available to those parties interested
in working with OSF in the future.  It outlines the requirements for
business and technical resources in the ongoing development of
Motif.

Please forward this message to all interested parties in your
organization or professional colleagues at other organizations.
Thanks for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Bruce Kin Huie                          Ellis Cohen
OSF/Motif Technology Manager            Architect
617-621-8953                            617-621-8718

Vania Joloboff
OSF/Motif Engineering Manager
617-621-8817



OSF's Sabbatical* Program for:
OSF/MOTIF* & NEXT GENERATION USER ENVIRONMENT

Become a core participant in the future of open systems through
OSF's Sabbatical Program.  OSF is currently undertaking several
advanced projects related to the Motif user environment to meet
industry requirements as defined through OSF's "Open Road".  To be
successful, we will engage the research, development, and business
resources of the industry in a cooperative fashion.  OSF's
Sabbatical Program is one of the specific ways that you and
companies like yours can make a visible difference in the future
user interfaces for open systems and next-generation user
environments.

Since the initiation of the program in 1988, we've had more than 130
Sabbaticals successfully participate.  Currently, there are 15
on-site including employees from DEC, IBM, HP, MITRE, USAF, Hitachi,
SNI, and Groupe Bull.  For consideration, we'll need a detailed
description of your education and experiences to determine where the
most effective assignment would be.  We attempt to personalize each
assignment to achieve maximum benefit for all parties concerned.  A
thorough and timely evaluation of your background will be done by
the managers of the specific opportunities you're interested in.

As a Sabbatical you will remain an active employee of your present
organization, on it's payroll while on temporary assignment to OSF.
The principal documents we use to initiate an assignment are the
Transition Plan and the Consent and Nondisclosure Agreement.  The
Transition Plan merely outlines the format of the arrangement
between OSF and the participating organization and should be edited
to provide all parties with a clear understanding of the goals and
objectives to be accomplished.  The Consent and Nondisclosure
Agreements related to confidentiality and ownership of inventions
are required for everyone's protection.
	
Please review the material and forward a copy of your resume to us
for consideration.  If you have any other questions at this stage of
the process, please contact Phil Sheerin directly at OSF Cambridge
at (617)621-8788, by fax at (617)621-0631, or send email to
sheerin@osf.org.
	
Motif, OSF, and OSF/Motif are trademarks of the Open Software Foundation.



OPERATIONS
TECHNOLOGY MANAGER, (Comparable to Product Marketing)
NEXT GENERATION USER ENVIRONMENT

-Create early strategic and technology delivery plans for future OSF
graphical user environment

-Recommend prospective business model(s) for this technology

-Work with Business Area Manager, Motif Technology Manager, Engineering,
and the User Environment Special Interest Group to ensure proper scoping
of the new technology

-Identify and involve prospective technology suppliers in the program

-Help to formally launch the program to deliver a next generation user 
environment in 1994

-Interface with OSF's constituents and Engineering to ensure the
successful rollout of early deliverables

Overall requirements: BS/BA or equivalent with 5-7 years of
experience in the planning and marketing of related products.  MBA
preferred.  A technical grasp of object orientation, multimedia,
strategies for bridging window systems, and/or advanced user
interface concepts is required.  Strong interpersonal and
communication skills are critical.

Assignment will begin as soon as practical, and will require a
commitment of 6-12 months.



ENGINEERING
APPLICATION INTEROPERABILITY AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

OSF Members and licensees have helped clarify our direction to
create an interchange module to provide application interoperability
between Motif and non-Motif applications and environments.  We're
currently assembling a team of Sabbaticals from the industry at
large to complement our existing staff.  This team will survey
recent technologies and design the integration architecture and
early specifications for the OSF technology.  Please consider
contributing your expertise for assignments related to the
following:

ARCHITECTS AND ENGINEER(S)

-Interchange formats, particularly those for 2d structured graphics,
structured text, multimedia, and compound documents with links

-Interchange format conversion, including registration and selection
of convertors based upon the kinds of data lost during conversion

-Integration of windowing environments--the ability to
simultaneously interact with programs using different windowing
API's (e.g. X/Mac/Windows/PM/PenPoint, etc) from a single display
screen

-Data interchange (e.g. cut & paste, drag & drop) between different
windowing environments (e.g. X/Mac/Windows/PM/PenPoint, etc.)

-Embedded viewing, editing, and printing for foreign data within
compound documents

-Object typing within a standard Unix Filesystem.

-OMG-compliant technology, including request broker implementations,
with support for federated naming, messaging and linking.

-Protocol to exchange data between applications, and user interface
components to implement such protocols

-Servers, protocols, and API's to support links, including support
for SGML HyTime, and updating linked data

-Object tracking within a standard Unix Filesystem

-Integration of linking and version control

-Toolkit support for building link-aware widgets, including support
for maintaining and tracking the state of linked regions

Overall requirements: MSCS/BSCS or equivalent, with a minimum of
7-10 years of software development experience in graphical user
interface technologies.  Specific expertise in the architectural
definition phases of any of the above listed technologies is
necessary.  Strong interpersonal and communication skills.

Assignments will begin as soon as practical and will require a
commitment of 6-12 months.