Bonobo
or the solution to the problem

Built on top of CORBA / ORBit
COM like design; fast local shlib mode
Provides
compound document support (embedding, printing, storage)
controls - like Java Beans / ActiveX components
monikers - an abstract object namespace
All defined via standard, IDL interfaces
Very, simple to use indeed

bonobo_widget_new_control  ("OAFIID:Bonobo_Clock", NULL);
bonobo_widget_set_property (control, "running", TRUE, NULL);

To be merged with OO's UNO
To be ported to Windows
Make Unix fully scriptable