The industry alliance that promises to unify the UNIX world released in September its first technical document � a set of standards that define a unified programmer's API across all versions of UNIX � that will potentially complicate NeXT's moves to follow industry standards.
"We are in favor of the UNIX community coming together and creating standard APIs," said Karen Logsdon, a NeXT spokeswoman. "As they are defined, we will work to make NEXTSTEP support those standards," she added.
The standard, developed by a team of engineers from such UNIX giants as Digital Equipment Corporation, HP, IBM, Sun Microsystems, and Novell's UNIX Systems Group, is designed to let developers write a single version of application programs that can then be able to run on different hardware and software platforms by simply recompiling and relinking.
Versions of UNIX featuring the so-called Common OS API should appear in mid-1994, the vendors said. Adding the common API won't be a big job for most, since many aspects of the API are already standard features in most versions of the UNIX operating system, including sockets, System V�based signals, conformance to POSIX, and the X Window system.
Nevertheless, the reliance upon X Windows is likely to complicate matters for NeXT, which does not support the system under NEXTSTEP unless the end user purchases one of several third-party products. Furthermore, NeXT's absence from the standard-setting committees means that NeXT will not formally have access to upcoming developments in the standards until they are publicly announced.