Motif (widget toolkit)
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In computing, Motif refers to both a graphical user interface (GUI) specification and the widget toolkit for building applications that follow that specification under the X Window System on Unix and Unix-like operating systems. The Motif look and feel is distinguished by its use of rudimentary square and chiseled three-dimensional effects for its various user interface elements. Motif is the toolkit for the Common Desktop Environment and
IRIX Interactive Desktop IRIX Interactive Desktop (formerly called Indigo Magic Desktop) is a desktop environment normally used as the default desktop on Silicon Graphics workstations running IRIX. The IRIX Interactive Desktop uses the Motif widget toolkit on top of the ...
, thus it was the standard widget toolkit for Unix. Closely related to Motif is the Motif Window Manager (MWM). After many years as proprietary software, Motif was released in 2012, as free software under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL-2.1-or-later).


History

Motif was created by the Open Software Foundation (OSF) to be a standard graphical user interface for Unix platforms. Rather than create a new interface from scratch, OSF opened a Request For Technology (RFT) in 1988 to solicit existing technologies from third parties. OSF intended to either adopt an existing interface wholesale, or create one using technologies from multiple existing products. Forty products were submitted, from which OSF selected twenty-three finalists. Among the finalists were
Adobe Inc. Adobe Inc. ( ), originally called Adobe Systems Incorporated, is an American multinational computer software company incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in San Jose, California. It has historically specialized in software for the crea ...
's Display Postscript,
Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, the ...
' OPEN LOOK, Digital Research's
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, IXI Limited's
X.desktop X.desktopSee X.desktop 3 details provided by SCO at was an early desktop environment graphical user interface built on the X Window System. It was developed and sold during the late 1980s and early 1990s by IXI Limited, a British software house ba ...
, Apollo Computer's Open Dialogue,
Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...
's Andrew User Interface System, Digital Equipment Corporation's XUI, and
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and Microsoft's CXI and PM/X. Ultimately, OSF selected HP and Microsoft's CXI and DEC's XUI, using the look and feel, window manager and Common User Access compliance from CXI, along with the widget toolkit API and User Interface Language (UIL) from XUI. Motif was first shipped by OSF in 1989. The launch of OSF/Motif started the GUI war. One side consisted of the OSF members (DEC, HP, IBM) promoting their new standard - OSF/Motif and on the other side Open Look (Sun and AT&T) It ended in 1993 when Sun adopted Motif as part of CDE.


Standardization

Motif is the basic building block of the Common Desktop Environment, which was the standard desktop for commercial Unix. The IEEE 1295 standard (now withdrawn) defines the "Motif API". As of version 2.1, Motif supports Unicode, which made it widely used in several multilingual environments.


Licensing


Proprietary

Motif was originally made available under a license requiring royalty payments.


Open Motif

A version called Open Motif (substantially the same codebase under a different license) was released on May 15, 2000, under a license which allowed
royalty-free Royalty-free (RF) material subject to copyright or other intellectual property rights may be used without the need to pay royalties or license fees for each use, per each copy or volume sold or some time period of use or sales. Computer standard ...
distribution of Open Motif if the platform upon which it is used was
open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...
but was not an open source license itself. The name was criticized by Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation for likelihood to mislead people into thinking it was proper
open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...
or free software, particularly for the Open Group's statement that they had "released the source code of Motif to the Open Source community". The initial release of Open Motif was version 2.1.30 in May 2000; Open Motif 2.3 was released in June 2007, followed by a 2.3.1 bug fix release in September 2008 and a 2.3.2 bug fix release in March 2009. During the time when Motif was closed source software, the
LessTif LessTif is a defunct free software reimplementation or clone of the Motif computer programming toolkit. The project aimed for full source- and binary-code compatibility with Motif. While this was not achieved, many Motif applications could run w ...
project was created with the aim of creating a free software implementation, under the LGPL.


GNU LGPL

In October 2012, Motif was released as a source code distribution under the GNU LGPL-2.1-or-later. Motif's source code is available on SourceForge.


See also

*
IBM Common User Access Common User Access (CUA) is a standard for user interfaces to operating systems and computer programs. It was developed by IBM and first published in 1987 as part of their Systems Application Architecture. Used originally in the MVS/ESA, VM/CMS, ...
*
LessTif LessTif is a defunct free software reimplementation or clone of the Motif computer programming toolkit. The project aimed for full source- and binary-code compatibility with Motif. While this was not achieved, many Motif applications could run w ...
*
MoOLIT MoOLIT (Motif OPEN LOOK Intrinsics Toolkit) is a graphical user interface library and application programming interface (API) created by Unix System Laboratories in an attempt to create a bridge between the two competing look-and-feels for Unix wo ...


References


External links


ICS MotifZone
(current) {{DEFAULTSORT:Motif (Widget Toolkit) Software using the LGPL license X-based libraries Formerly proprietary software