As the focus on the Internet, Intranets, and this network computing environment, continues to increase, a number of emerging technologies and potential standards will emerge, both open and proprietary, competing for acceptance. Along with this will come a growing variety of network-attached devices, which will implement various combinations of these standards.
As consumers, developers, manufacturers, corporations, education, government, service providers, and others, approach this complex and sometimes confusing landscape, it will be beneficial if a common set of standards exists which facilitates:
This NC Specification is aimed at promoting this objective. It provides an entry-level definition for a foundation NC, to define common sets of popular and widely used features and functions across a broad range of scaleable network computing devices, including personal computers. It is flexible, architecturally neutral, and is intended to facilitate the growth of network computers while helping to protect investments made by customers and by content, system, service, and application providers. It encourages interoperability with servers, and facilitates development of a broad application base to run on compliant devices. It also provides guidelines to content and service providers for designing and building applications, and other Internet content which will interoperate with NC-standard-compliant devices.
This specification does not define a complete implementation for a network computer, nor does it preclude provision of additional features and functions outside the scope of the foundation NC.
Network computers are expected to be highly scaleable and to span a product range from the palmtop to the desktop. They attach to the network and interoperate with other network nodes and network content in an IP-based network. They are end-user devices.
Network computers conforming to this specification support a common Java-based execution environment, enabling network-resident applications, as well as stand-alone applications, to execute on them. They are typically dependent on the network, but may offer stand-alone functionality.
This NC Specification is an open systems specification, meaning that it defines an open standard which can be fully implemented from the information included in this document and referenced by this document. It has no dependency on any other information or proprietary technology.
This NC Specification is an "open systems" specification, meaning that it defines an open standard which can be fully implemented from the information included in this document and referenced by this document. It has no dependency on any other information or proprietary technology.
These are identified in the list of Referenced Documents in the front pages of this specification.
Any NC product which satisfies the mandatory parts of this NC specification may expect to satisfy the conformance requirements for the NC Brand. If any optional NC facilities defined in this specification are included in an NC product, then those facilities must be implemented as defined in this NC specification.
Conformant products may also provide additional standards-based or proprietary services, so long as the mandatory conformance requirements continue to be met, or an environment in which these requirements are met can be configured by a user.
In all cases, the definitive conformance requirements are specified in the applicable NC Product Standard.
The process to apply for award of an NC Brand is described in information linked from The Open Group's NC public Web page (http://www.opengroup.org/nc/).
It is clear that the market will demand a variety of network computer products to satisfy the differing requirements in a number of market areas.
It is desirable that all these Network Computers support a foundation level of functionality and standards, and that classes of devices, which may provide unique features and functions specific to their particular market, do so consistently, and where possible are based upon the same common foundation of open systems standards.
Accordingly, future versions of this NC Specification will build from the foundation NC, to define additional functionality.
As the set of NC functional components increases, new NC Product Standards will be generated to define conformance requirements for higher-functionality NC products. In addition, one NC Product Standard may call up other NC Product Standards, so enabling various combinations of functionality to be defined. Thus, a range of NC Product Standards will emerge, to meet market demand for the NC Brand for various configurations of NC products, for general use and for specific vertical markets. These NC Product Standards will coexist. The foundation NC Product Standard will be a fundamental component included in all higher-functionality NC Product Standards.
With respect to users or applications, the word means
recommended programming practice that is necessary for maximum portability.
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