Open C Environment is a set of architectural guidelines, conventions, and a common platform that allow for efficient implementation and integration of OSI protocols in C. Open C Environment defines the architecture and the mechanism used for exchange of primitives across layer interfaces. Open C Platform defines the interfaces to a set of common facilities that may be used by Open C layers.
An Open C Layer is the implementation of an OSI protocol that conforms to Open C Environment architecture and guidelines. Direct function calls are used for exchange of primitives across Open C layers. This simple and efficient primitive exchange mechanism allows for integration of Open C Layers into multi-layered communication entities. Other methods for exchange of service primitives (such as interprocess or interprocessor communication facilities) often result into performance degradation across layer boundaries.
Once the upper and the lower interfaces of a Layer are defined (based on the service definitions), independent implementors can implement Open C Layers. Since the upper interface of implementation of (N) layer protocols match the lower interface of implementation of (N+1) layer protocols, several Open C Layers can be integrated into a multi-layered communication software entity.