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From: n...@usenix.org (Nicholas M. Stoughton)
Newsgroups: comp.std.unix
Subject: Standards Update, POSIX.0: Guide to POSIX OSE
Date: 15 Feb 1994 09:45:53 -0800
Organization: USENIX Standards Report Editor
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Submitted-by: n...@usenix.org (Nicholas M. Stoughton)
USENIX Standards Report Editor
Nicholas M. Stoughton < n...@usenix.org>, Report Editor
POSIX.0: Guide to POSIX OSE
Kevin Lewis < kle...@gucci.enet.dec.com> reports on the
January 10-14, 1994 meeting in Irvine, Ca.:
From The Battlefield
Work to get POSIX.0 approved continues. The ballot
recirculation is in. Let me first give you the statistics.
There are 86 total people in the balloting group of which 81
are eligible to vote. A total of 75 ballots were returned.
The breakdown of those votes are as follows: 45 affirmative,
17 negative, 13 abstentions. This represents a 92% return.
The 45 votes represent a 72% affirmative. The ballots
consist of 167 comments and 182 objections which represent
about 25% of the total submitted during the first round of
balloting.
Before commencing resolution of the recirculation ballots,
in Irvine, we discussed a letter that had been received by
the IEEE from the ACM. This letter focused on the overall
IEEE balloting process, the concern that some of IEEE work
overlaps with standards work within X3, and that our guide
document still lacks the necessary level of consensus. A
side point was that a portion of our rationale for rejecting
specific objections was poor.
This letter amounted to a hand grenade being lobbed in the
middle of our work, or, to quote a couple of the working
group members, a tactical nuclear attack. I won't go into
too many details here, but the group did meet with two
people who were wearing ACM hats to share their concerns
along with those of ACM. However, some working group
members who were also ACM members were quite disturbed by
the tone of the letter, part of which included an `_a_d
_h_o_m_i_n_e_m' (no, that isn't sexist - ed) attack against the
working group itself. They were also distressed by the
approach taken by ACM of sending such a letter to the IEEE
without first having a dialogue with the group. Words such
as `protest' and `malfeasance' made their way into the
discussion.
In my humble opinion, the only part of the letter I
considered valid (and I'm quite sure I would have the
unanimous assent of the group on this) was that portion
addressing our rationale. And this, by the way, was quite
helpful. In fact, it redirected our efforts for the better
during the week. The group decided to return to the
- 2 -
unresolved objections from the first ballot for the purpose
of reviewing each one for possible acceptance or
correcting/strengthening our rationale for rejection, which
I admit was both weak in places and occasionally arrogant.
We completed this task, but did not get to the recirculation
ballots. Because of this, and also due to the overall
feeling in the group that more productive resolution work
could be done at a meeting away from the quarterly PASC
(Portable Applications Standards Committee) meetings, we
agreed to schedule an additional meeting specifically for
the section leaders, to take place in March in the
Washington, D.C., area. The only activity at this meeting
will be resolution of the recirculation ballots. The exact
date has yet to be determined.
I feel quite strongly that we will be able to complete all
of the recirculation ballots at this March meeting. What
remains now is the review-and-comment action by SC22, the
ISO subcommittee responsible for POSIX, which is now in
progress. It looks like it will be October before we have a
document ready for submission to the IEEE Standards Board.
One more thing: the POSIX.0 working group is scheduled to
meet for two days at the April PASC meeting in Lake Tahoe.
This will be a skeleton crew to effect coordination with and
provide representation to some other key PASC committees,
such as the Profile Steering Committee and the Sponsor
Executive Committee. In addition, this crew will monitor
the resolutions to the international committees that
directly or indirectly affect the guide effort.
Volume-Number: Volume 34, Number 3
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