Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 11:33:09 -0400
To: lwn@lwn.net
From: Mark Hatch <mhatch@ics.com>
Subject: First update to Motif includes fixes by Open Source Community


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:
Mark Hatch
ICS
617-621-0060 x108
mhatch@ics.com
http://www.ics.com
http://www.motifzone.net


ICS UNVEILS FIRST UPDATE OF OPEN MOTIF FOR LINUX
Includes first Bug Fixes by Open Source Community

CAMBRIDGE, MA, June 14, 2000  Integrated Computer Solutions, Inc. (ICS), 
the leading supplier of commercial Motif® products and support, announced 
the immediate availability of the first upgrade to its existing Open Motif 
Everywhere distribution. This upgrade includes the first bug fixes 
generated by the Open Source Community and also includes improvements for 
those wishing to build their own versions of Open Motif from source code.

Open Motif Everywhere is the ICS distribution of Open Motif built from the 
official Open Group sources. ICS is making the binaries and sources to Open 
Motif Everywhere available for free download through ICS' Open Motif portal 
site, http://www.motifzone.net. A CD-ROM distribution, containing binaries 
for most popular Linux and FreeBSD distributions, Open Motif source code, 
Adobe PDF versions of the official Motif 2.1 Manual set and email 
installation support is available through the MotifZone and popular Linux 
retailers such as Linux Mall. Annual support contracts are offered for 
commercial customers.

“One of the benefits of open source, is that developers worldwide can 
review source code, fix bugs and extend the functionality of a piece of 
software,” said Mark Hatch, Chief Operating Officer, ICS. “Within 3 days of 
The Open Group making Open Motif available, there were already two bugs 
found and fixed by the Open Source community. This demonstrates once again 
the power of the open source concept!”

The errors were found in the Motif Window Manager (mwm) and in the commands 
(Imakefile) used to build the source code. In addition to these bug fixes, 
the ICS upgrade provides the SRPMs used to build Open Motif. By providing 
SRPMs, ICS makes it possible for developers to more easily experiment and 
create their own customized versions. Some system administrators prefer to 
compile their own object modules because of their highly tailored system 
environments.

MotifZone, ICS’s Portal for Open Motif Exceeds 10,000 Downloads
As part of the rollout of Open Motif to the Linux community, ICS launched a 
new Internet portal, the MotifZone (http://www.motifzone.net). The 
MotifZone is starting to fulfill its objective of being the center for 
continued open source development of Motif. Over 10,000 downloads of Open 
Motif have been delievered by The MotifZone to Open Source developers 
worldwide. It also is supporting an active community of over 500 developers 
that are daily discussing issues related to Open Motif.

Availability and Pricing
Open Motif Everywhere is immediately available at the MotifZone 
(http://www.motifzone.net) and through Linux resellers such as The Linux 
Mall. The CD-ROM version includes 30 days of email installation support and 
has a suggested list price of $29.95 (USD).

Open Motif Everywhere has been tested on the following distributions: Corel 
(Intel), FreeBSD (Intel), Linux PPC 2000 (PPC), Mandrake (Intel), Red Hat 
(Intel, Sparc, Alpha), Slackware (Intel), Storm 2000 (Intel), SuSE (Intel), 
and TurboLinux (Intel).  In addition, Open Motif Everywhere is expected to 
work on other Linux distributions because of the high degree of binary 
compatibility between Linux systems. See http://www.motifzone.net for 
specific details on supported releases.

About ICS
Founded in 1987, ICS was chartered to create software development tools for 
developers working with the then emerging X Window System™. The company’s 
first product offerings included X training and a version of Motif for 
systems manufactured by Sun Microsystems. Prior to widespread adoption of 
Motif by the UNIX workstation vendors, ICS was the leading independent 
shipper of the Motif toolkit. In 1998, The Open Group chose ICS to provide 
technical support for its Motif source code licenses.

Today, ICS is the current market leader in Motif graphical user interface 
development tools, Builder Xcessory PRO (BX PRO). In its fifth major 
release and representing over 100 person years of effort, BX PRO defines a 
level of sophistication, functionality and ease of use that is unmatched in 
the industry. In November of 1999, the combination of BX PRO from ICS and 
Code Fusion from Red Hat software was awarded the Editor´s Choice award by 
the leading Linux magazine, The Linux Journal, for the Best New Application 
for Software Development. Commenting on the importance of this alliance, 
The Linux Journal described the software as "…the first Visual C/C++ 
equivalent for Linux."

For further information on ICS, its products or services, call 
617-621-0060, or visit the ICS Website at http://www.ics.com.

# # #

UNIX and Motif are registered trademarks of The Open Group in the US and 
other countries. The Open Group and the X Window System are trademarks of 
The Open Group.
  Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.
All other names and trademarks are the property of their respective owners.



-
Integrated Computer Solutions, Inc.
Visual Development Tools for Professionals

617-621-0060 x108 (voice)
617-621-9555 (fax)

201 Broadway
Cambridge, MA 02139