sklower@okeeffe.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Sklower) (11/29/90)
Submitted-by: sklower@okeeffe.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Sklower) The POSIX process-to-process communications working group (P1003.12) would like to solicit outside comment. The committee wishes to publish an interface at the level of exposed detail exhibited by both sockets and XTI. Previously, the committee had been of the opinion that although both sets of existing practice were relatively similar, each had technical flaws. Furthermore, each had a user community unwilling to give theirs up and adopt the other. The working solution the commitee had been pursuing was to combine the the best features of the two interfaces, changing the names and semantics of the primitives, so that some amount of re-coding would be necessary. The committee was using as its model the level of modification done to the job control and termios facilities of P1003.1 There has recently been vociferous opposition to this plan, arguing that vendors would have to support THREE interfaces (sockets, XTI and POSIX) and it would be better to have the P1003.12 committee issue IEEE standard versions of the existing two, with possible backwards compatible extensions and improvements. We invite you to submit your reactions to dot12@okeeffe.Berkeley.EDU for consideration by the committee. It would be helpful to some of us if you would say something about your background or experience with either of XTI or sockets. Volume-Number: Volume 22, Number 19