randall@uvaarpa.virginia.edu (Randall Atkinson) (12/03/89)
From: randall@uvaarpa.virginia.edu (Randall Atkinson) Before I get into the technical reactions, I'd like to make public complaints about the way that the IEEE is handling access to draft materials from the 1003 working groups. I have contacted the IEEE by phone and postal mail asking how to get mailings of the drafts so that I can comment on the proposals on a timely basis. The IEEE has verbally indicated that they "would get back to me" with details on how to do this but have not. My employer isn't going to send me off to actually join the committees and I'm not independantly wealthy so it just isn't possible for me to take a more direct role. I am appreciative of the efforts of the USENIX Watchdog Group, but wish that those of us on the sidelines could get more response from the IEEE on how to get the draft materials for review before they become standards. I am concerned that both 1201 and 1003.8 are going to end up giving a rubber-stamp to existing commercial products (however good they might be) rather than giving us the portability and functional capabilities that might be needed. The discussion of the problems when multiple processes are accessing the same file through a TFA mechanism is well taken. As a developer of software I want to have a clearly defined behavior. If there are "options" it is much more difficult (if not impossible) to write portable software. If there is inadequate definition of the behavior or definition in any way inconsistent with a strict interpretation of 1003.1, it again seriously diminishes the usefulness of the resulting standard. NFS is a fine product; I would hope that the committee will look beyond it however to something that gives more guarantees about the behaviour of writes and reads. If 1003.8 is mostly a rubber stamp of NFS, it will not do most of us much good. The API of 1201.1 should NOT be based primarily upon OpenLook, Motif, NeXT Step, and the Apple Macintosh. Instead, what is needed is a generic interface that will provide a complete set of routines that aren't bound to any specific existing GUI. I believe that all GUIs have much room for improvement (especially in the International arena where icons for the US often make little sense) and I don't want reasonable improvements to be locked out by a poorly designed standard. I don't have enough information to comment specifically on what 1201.2 is trying to accomplish, but again I do not want to see the IEEE rubber stamp Motif, OpenLook, or any other "style." It is premature for the IEEE to standardise the style at this point. I feel (and have felt since the original trial-use standard) that the 1003.1 standards group erred in having quite so many options to the standard. It appears that the NIST agrees since the FIPS interpretation of 1003.1 eliminated the worst of these uncertainties. Other standards groups in the 1003 and 1201 area should pay particular attention to this and avoid creating standards that have optional behaviour. If published standards have options, the marketplace will eventually narrow them down to a de facto single standard option and this narrowing down is precisely the point of having standards groups. Regards, Randall Atkinson randall@Virginia.EDU Opinions are the author's. Volume-Number: Volume 17, Number 86
std-unix@longway.TIC.COM (Moderator, John S. Quarterman) (12/05/89)
>From: randall@uvaarpa.virginia.edu (Randall Atkinson) >Before I get into the technical reactions, I'd like to make public >complaints about the way that the IEEE is handling access to draft >materials from the 1003 working groups. I have contacted the IEEE >by phone and postal mail asking how to get mailings of the drafts >so that I can comment on the proposals on a timely basis. The IEEE >has verbally indicated that they "would get back to me" with details >on how to do this but have not. My employer isn't going to send me >off to actually join the committees and I'm not independantly wealthy >so it just isn't possible for me to take a more direct role. Actually, it is possible. Monthly in this newsgroup you will find an article that lists contact addresses for all the IEEE 1003, IEEE 1201, X3J11, ISO, and related standards and related bodies. All the IEEE standards committees have mailing lists which anyone can subscribe to (you may be required to be a member of IEEE). There is a fee, which is usually about $100 per group per year. You don't have to attend the meetings to get the mailings. It is quite possible that IEEE sometimes doesn't respond as quickly as would be desired, but that's a different question (which I will attempt to answer in a few days under while wearing a different hat). That article, Subject: Access to UNIX-Related Standards, is currently kept up to date by Susanne W. Smith of Windsound Consulting, which is why you now see it being posted again after a nine month hiatus after the first two years or so when I posted it. If you feel information is missing from it, or if you have other comments you want to make about it or its companion articles, send mail to her at sws@calvin.wa.com or me and we will attend to it. The next version of those articles will appear in the next week or so. John S. Quarterman, Texas Internet Consulting <jsq@longway.tic.com> Volume-Number: Volume 17, Number 87
mark@jhereg.Minnetech.MN.ORG (Mark H. Colburn) (12/05/89)
From: mark@jhereg.Minnetech.MN.ORG (Mark H. Colburn) In article <459@longway.TIC.COM> randall@uvaarpa.virginia.edu (Randall Atkinson) writes: >From: randall@uvaarpa.virginia.edu (Randall Atkinson) > >Before I get into the technical reactions, I'd like to make public >complaints about the way that the IEEE is handling access to draft >materials from the 1003 working groups. I have contacted the IEEE >by phone and postal mail asking how to get mailings of the drafts >so that I can comment on the proposals on a timely basis. The IEEE >has verbally indicated that they "would get back to me" with details >on how to do this but have not. There are a number of ways that you can participate. One of the ways to do this is as a corresponding group member to one of the IEEE 1003.? or 1201 groups. If IEEE is not giving you then information, then you should let either Shane McCarron, Secretary TCOS-SS or Jim Issak, Chair TCOS-SS know about it so that IEEE may be properly chastised. The idea behind the corresponding group is that you receive mailings 8 times a year. These mailings contian minutes and information from the meetings, and also contain drafts of the material being presented. These mailings are LARGE, especially if you subscribe to more than one group. There has been a great deal of success with the corresponding members in the past. This tradition will no doubt continue. The Corresponding Group members are just as much of a part of the commitee as the ones that actually attend the meeting. Several notable people including Richard Stallman, Dennis Richie and David Korn have all provided input to the working groups without attending meetings often, if at all. The mailings are not free. There is a charge associated with receiving these mailings, however, it is much less expensive than attending the meetings themselves. If you would like more information regarding the mailings, you should contact: Charles Haberman NAPS International 117 Mackubin Street, Suite 6 St. Paul, MN 55102 +1 612 224 9239 The mailings are also a good way to find out when there are ballot groups forming for the various working groups. Note that being a corresponding group member does not automatically enter you into the balloting group. -- Mark H. Colburn mark@Minnetech.MN.ORG Open Systems Architects, Inc. Volume-Number: Volume 17, Number 90