OSF Reorganizes, Sun Enters the Fold

From the Open Software Foundation's inception in 1988, OSF's relationship with Sun Microsystems was competitive, to be polite. Sun certainly was up to the challenge, with executives claiming that OSF really stood for "Oppose Sun Forever." The resulting contention prolonged the split between the two major Unix camps for years.

All that ended in March 1994 at Uniforum, where OSF unveiled a new business model and process that bring Sun's SunSoft unit into the fold as one of the key members of the new organization. The new OSF (which is retaining the OSF name for the moment) is shifting to a more project-oriented operating model. Technology projects will be funded separately and managed individually, and engineering work will be outsourced. The hope is that this structure will promote more concurrent t echnology projects, addressing more customer-specific technology issues and requirements in a more timely manner.

The reorganized OSF relies on a new multi-tiered sponsorship structure, consisting of executive sponsors and associate sponsors. Executive sponsorship requires a three-year commitment at a membership fee of $1 million per year. Associate sponsors pay a fee of $200,000 per year. Existing membership levels for nonsponsors remain unchanged.

OSF is also adopting a new technology selection process. In the past, OSF issued an RFT (Request for Technology) for a specific area, evaluated the submissions, and integrated those selected. Under the new organization, project sponsors can take the initiative in proposing a complete development solution in the form of a PST (Pre-Structured Technology). Under the new organization, DCE 1.1 is slated for release in November.

---

New OSF Sponsors

-- AT&T Global Information Solutions
-- Bull Worldwide Information Systems
-- DE
C
-- Fujitsu
-- Hewlett-Packard
-- Hitachi
-- IBM
-- International Computers, Ltd.
-- NEC
-- Novell
-- Olivetti
-- Siemens Nixdorf Information Systems
-- Silicon Graphics
-- Sony
-- SunSoft
-- Transarc