pc@hillside.co.uk (Peter Collinson) (06/06/91)
Submitted-by: pc@hillside.co.uk (Peter Collinson) USENIX Standards Watchdog Committee Stephen R. Walli <stephe@usenix.org>, Report Editor Report on 1003.0: POSIX Guide Kevin Lewis, <klewis@gucci.enet.dec.com> reports on the April 15-19, 1991 meeting in Chicago, IL: Summary POSIX.0, more familiarly referred to as `the Guide' is best summed up the first sentence of Draft 11. ``This guide identifies parameters for an open system environment using the POSIX operating system/application interface as the platform''. The working group spent the week reviewing the document, addressing omissions and readability issues. Careful attention was paid to the guide's readiness for mock ballot (Oct. eventual submission to ISO as a technical report. Report Believe it or not, this group made its best forward progress by reviewing the guide document backwards. I'm still trying to figure out what this says about our group. [ed - And so are we all!] This forced us to deal with issues that were latent because we simply had not made it all the way to the end of the document before. On the occasions we did, we were too exhausted to do anything substantive. There were times during the review when I felt we were writing a very succinct and precise ``ballad''. Other times we seemed to be writing the sequel to ``War & Peace.'' Overall we made significant progress. Many key issues were addressed in Chicago. First was the errant and unintentional (I think) omission of the balloting P1003.2 (Shell and Utilities) standard from the guide. Wendy Rauch agreed to draft a write-up on how this standard fits into the context of the guide for its next release. Another issue was that of how to address character-based terminals in the user interface section. Pertinent contributions are being written for inclusion in the next draft. The use of the guide as an ISO Technical Report was also discussed this week. Factors affecting this are the guide's readiness and whether or not this readiness coincides with an acceptable time frame for ISO. There is a document synchronization plan between the IEEE and ISO, which will allow POSIX documents to be published concurrently as both ISO and IEEE standards. POSIX.0 plans to use a mock ballot as a way to judge its readiness. The group agreed that this ballot could not commence before the October '91 meeting. The group may, however, submit the guide to ISO prior to the completion of the mock ballot. As you might imagine, the decision to submit the guide to ISO is very subjective and discussion of this will probably eat up considerable time at the October meeting. (This reminds me. I better get Mr. Isaak to provide me with a large gavel). Lastly, POSIX.0 strongly focused its attention on the overall readability of the guide in such a manner that I felt we were finally able to see the proverbial ``forest for the trees.'' This will be the primary focus in the July meeting, strongly coupled with a review of those sections that should be either dropped (e.g. the graphics section) or postponed (e.g. the languages section) until after the mock ballot. (The languages section is likely to be postponed due to lack of help and not because it is any less significant.) In summary, POSIX.0 is on track, heading in the right direction, BUT with some medium-to-high hurdles remaining. Volume-Number: Volume 23, Number 96