API support with COM for Tru64 UNIX

Compaq ported all of the standard, non-Windows, COM APIs to Tru64 UNIX. By "standard, non-Windows," Compaq means that it did not port the GUI-based APIs, such as drag-and-drop, which make no sense on a Tru64 UNIX machine. However, Compaq did port all of the APIs and interfaces that programmers require to write COM applications that conform, in every way, to the COM standard.

The interface and API categories that are available to an application developer using the COM implementation on Tru64 UNIX are defined in the Component Object Model Specification, available at www.microsoft.com/com/comdocs.asp. Because the list of supported APIs grows with each version of COM on the Compaq platforms, refer to the documentation for COM on Tru64 UNIX for the most up-to-date list.

The APIs supported on Compaq platforms are a superset of the APIs that Microsoft requires for conformance to the interoperability standards.

Microsoft worked closely with Compaq to port COM to the Compaq platforms. To ensure that the implementation of COM is consistent across the various UNIX systems, Microsoft provides a conformance test that COM implementations must pass. (The Tru64 UNIX implementation passes these tests. The tests are also known as Interoperability Tests and are available from The Open Group.)

The tests verify that the COM implementation fulfills a basic set of performance requirements and that the level of API support is standardized. These standards and tests make sure that applications can be relied upon to run across platforms.

The...