Here's some great behind-the-scenes insight into how Motif and UIL came about, and the palace intrigue between DEC and other OSF member companies, from Kee Hinkley, a member of the team that created Motif, who worked for Apollo Computer before working for HP:

https://guidebookgallery.org/articles/osfmotif/pics/01

Date: 27 Mar 90 13:36:06 GMT

Subject: Re: UIL or NOT to UIL

From: snorkelwacker!spdcc!tauxersvilli!alphalpha!naz...@bloom-beacon.mit.edu (Kee Hinckley)

I tried to reply directly to this, but auto-trol.com doesn't seem to
be around, so...

In article <792@auto-trol.UUCP> marbru@auto-trol.COM (Martin Brunecky) writes:

> For your case I'd need a more generic one, specifying widget ID to
> to set. Easy to do. I did not think of one, since to accomplish your
> task we have WsMatrixBox, which does all you need with 2-3 resources,
> without all that ugly code.

I don't suppose WsMatrixBox is available anywhere?

> With the X resource database, there is no problem, since the
> "hidden" widget always has a name (somehow constructed by the
> confusion routine). And since there is a name, and a known place
> in widget hierarchy, you can define any resources you wish.

Ugh. Not your fault, but ugh nonetheless.

>>Incidentally. OSF did at one point consider using an extended
>>Xresources form as an alternative to UIL, but was convinced (I forget
>>the exact reasons) that it wasn't appropriate (too hacky?).

> Wasn't the real reason some OSF member was already using UIL
> and wanted to make it a "standard" ?

Keep in mind these are my opinions and mine alone, based on my view as
part of the team that "created" Motif.

There is no question in my mind that had OSF not chosen UIL, an "OSF
Member" would have been upset. The results of that, I don't know - it
didn't come to that. My feeling, and what I believe the consensus to
have been, was that UIL, while by no means perfect or even correct,
was a step in the right direction. I also felt (and I regret not
examining the code more throughly in the hour or so I had it) that it
could be fixed, and that no better, timely (e.g. Open Dialogue was
potentially not timely (in retrospect I know that is wrong, it could
have been there, but...)), solution existed. Given that something
like it seemed necessary, both as a transfer language for IDTs
(something the membership wanted), and as a means for supporting
internationalization, it was decided that it should be included but
not placed in the AES (Application Environment Specification) - in
other words, the specification of UIL is open for change in the
future. I, at least, was under the impression that work would begin to
correct these problems as soon as Motif was released. In fact, there
were several possible approaches bandied about for what the new UIL
would look like and who would do the work.

In my opinion OSF dropped the ball here, and frankly I feel somewhat
betrayed, since what we worked out was a compromise and I feel it was
tossed as soon as the transition team left. I should point out
however, that I don't think, given my knowledge of the people who are
at OSF, that this was done for political reasons. I suspect it has
been more a matter of manpower and priorities. I do think that it's
extremely regretable however, since the number of programs using UIL
is (as I was afraid) increasing rapidly, and any viable UIL
replacement now must support seamless translation to and from UIL
files.

-kee

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