The Architecture Neutral Distribution Format (ANDF) in
computing
Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and development of both hardware and software. Computing has scientific, e ...
is a technology allowing common "shrink wrapped" binary application programs to be distributed for use on conformant
Unix
Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...
systems, translated to run on different underlying hardware platforms. ANDF was defined by the
Open Software Foundation
The Open Software Foundation (OSF) was a not-for-profit industry consortium for creating an open standard for an implementation of the operating system Unix. It was formed in 1988 and merged with X/Open in 1996, to become The Open Group.
Despit ...
and was expected to be a "truly revolutionary technology that will significantly advance the cause of portability and open systems",
but it was never widely adopted.
As with other OSF offerings, ANDF was specified through an open selection process. OSF issued a Request for Technology for architecture-neutral software distribution technologies in April, 1989. Fifteen proposals were received, based on a variety of technical approaches, including obscured source code, compiler intermediate languages, and annotated executable code.
The technology of ANDF, chosen after an evaluation of competing approaches and implementations, was
Ten15 Distribution Format, later renamed TenDRA Distribution Format, developed by the UK
Defence Research Agency
The Defence Research Agency (DRA) was an executive agency of the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) from April 1991 until April 1995. At the time, the DRA was Britain's largest science and technology organisation. In April 1995, the DRA was combined wi ...
.
Adoption
ANDF was intended to benefit both software developers and users. Software developers could release a single binary for all platforms, and software users would have freedom to procure multiple vendors' hardware competitively.
Programming language
A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language.
The description of a programming ...
designers and implementors were also interested because standard installers would mean that only a single language front end would need to be developed.
OSF released several development 'snapshots' of ANDF, but it was never released commercially by OSF or any of its members. Various reasons have been proposed for this: for example, that having multiple installation systems would complicate software support.
After OSF stopped working on ANDF, development continued at other organizations.
See also
*
TenDRA Compiler
The TenDRA Compiler is a C/C++ compiler for POSIX-compatible operating systems available under the terms of the BSD license.
It was originally developed by the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA) in the United Kingdom. In the beginning ...
*
UNCOL UNCOL (Universal Computer Oriented Language) is a universal intermediate language for compilers. The idea was introduced in 1958, by a SHARE ad-hoc committee. It was never fully specified or implemented; in many ways it was more a concept than a l ...
*
Java bytecode
In computing, Java bytecode is the bytecode-structured instruction set of the Java virtual machine (JVM), a virtual machine that enables a computer to run programs written in the Java programming language and several other programming languages, ...
*
Common Language Runtime
The Common Language Runtime (CLR), the virtual machine component of Microsoft .NET Framework, manages the execution of .NET programs. Just-in-time compilation converts the managed code (compiled intermediate language code) into machine instructio ...
*
LLVM
LLVM is a set of compiler and toolchain technologies that can be used to develop a front end for any programming language and a back end for any instruction set architecture. LLVM is designed around a language-independent intermediate represen ...
*
Compilation
Compilation may refer to:
*In computer programming, the translation of source code into object code by a compiler
**Compilation error
**Compilation unit
*Product bundling, a marketing strategy used to sell multiple products
*Compilation thesis
M ...
*
Software portability
A computer program is said to be portable if there is very low effort required to make it run on different platforms. The pre-requirement for portability is the generalized abstraction between the application logic and system interfaces. When ...
*
WebAssembly
WebAssembly (sometimes abbreviated Wasm) defines a portable binary-code format and a corresponding text format for executable programs as well as software interfaces for facilitating interactions between such programs and their host environment ...
*
SafeTSA SafeTSA (Safe Typed Single Assignment) is a static single assignment form (SSA) intermediate representation capable of representing all of the type safety of the Java programming language and the standard Java Virtual Machine (JVM) byte-code
...
*
Oberon ''slim binaries''
References
Bibliography
* Stavros Macrakis,
The Structure of ANDF: Principles and Examples, Open Software Foundation, RI-ANDF-RP1-1, January, 1992.
* Stavros Macrakis,
Protecting Source Code with ANDF, Open Software Foundation, November, 1992.
* Open Systems Foundation. "OSF Architecture-Neutral Distribution Format Rationale", June 1991.
* Open Systems Foundation. "A Brief Introduction to ANDF", January 1993. Available a
Google Groups
Abstract machines
Cross-compilers
Executable file formats
Computer-related introductions in 1991
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