COM/DCOM standard, conformance test suite (was: Wine call graph; wineserver; the "big picture")

[Dan Kegel]

Phillip Schmitz wrote:
> I've been lurking for a while now with a view to starting work on wine
> - specifically COM and DCOM. I know some people have started some work
> and there might be some patent issues with COM at least - so maybe
> DCOM is a better bet (I had the possibly naive idea of implementing
> COM via DCOM - it would be almost transparent, slower but less
> "dangerous").

I doubt that DCOM has fewer patent issues than COM.  

By the way, here's a good 'executive summary' of com/dcom:
 http://www.sei.cmu.edu/str/descriptions/com_body.html
And here's the official spec (yes, there is one!):
 http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009899899/
The above document is actually the "ActiveX" spec,
so it covers more than just COM, but that's probably good.
I don't know how good it is as an implementor's guide, but it looks promising.

> Also, what do people use in terms of test-suites? custom win32 apps?
> free/shareware? While I have quite a few larger apps like Office etc I
> imagine it's better to try smaller, more specific apps at first. I
> want to do comparisons and communication with Win95/8 in VMWare and
> don't really want to _purchase more Win32 apps_ for testing!

Good question.

There *is* a COM conformance test suite; see 
http://www.microsoft.com/msj/1298/ntUnix/ntUnixtop.htm
I doubt that Microsoft would let Wine developers use it, though.

On the other hand, the Open Group sells COM/DCOM implementations packaged with the
interoperability test suite at a "nominal fee"; see
http://www.opengroup.org/comsource/datasheet.htm
They have released things like Motif as open source in the past...
I wonder if they'd be willing to contribute their DCOM or the test suite?
That would rock.

Anyone know anyone who works at the Open Group? :-)

- Dan

-- 
"I have seen the future, and it licks itself clean." -- Bucky Katt