From: ellis@osf.org (Ellis S. Cohen)
Newsgroups: news.announce.conferences
Subject: OSF Interchange & Interoperability Workshop
Date: 31 Jul 92 18:28:57 GMT
Organization: Open Software Foundation


- ANNOUNCEMENT AND INVITATION TO AN INDUSTRY WORKSHOP -

INDUSTRY WORKSHOP on Interchange and Application Interoperability

OSF is undertaking a 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.

    -- Possible other related technologies including scripting languages
       and groupware support

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 technology for messaging and linking.

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 (tentative dates)
        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, Application Interoperability
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.