Netscape Code

[Matthew Benjamin <MBenjamin@comshare.com>]

AM-INFO folk,

As a programmer, I can say that one of the most important questions
about Netscape's promise to distribute Communicator source code, is
whether it includes the CORBA/IIOP object protocol capability included
in Communicator 4.

If so, CORBA should be a major focus of energy by advocates of open
computer systems, and a competitive software industry.  

CORBA is an OPEN object-oriented communication protocol, sort of like
Microsoft's COM/OLE/ActiveX-but it is in the public domain, supervised
by the Object Management Group, a consortium of 700+ industry companies.
Anyone can download the CORBA specifications, and efficient, free
implementations of CORBA exist (eg,
http://siesta.cs.wustl.edu/~schmidt/TAO.html ).  Free availability of a
commercial CORBA client implementation would give CORBA a major boost in
the marketplace.

Widespread support for CORBA protocols would be a major blow for
Microsoft, which is trying to lock the customers into its own,
proprietary protocols, which are essentially supported only on
Microsoft's Operating Systems.  It would be a significant win for open
competition in the software industry.


Matthew Benjamin