Standards Update (1: P1003.1 Final Balloting)

[Moderator, John S. Quarterman]

                      Standards Update
           An update on UNIX Standards Activities

                       April 17, 1988

             Written for the USENIX Association
              by Shane P. McCarron, NAPS Inc.

[This report was written at the request of the Board of
Directors of the USENIX Association.  In the interests of
reducing article sizes and making followups easier to
manage, I am posting it in three parts, divided according to
the following topics:
     P1003.1 Final Balloting?
     NBS POSIX FIPS
     IEEE P1003 Activities
-mod]

This is the second in a series of reports on the UNIX
standards community.  In this article I will give you a
summary of what happened at the March meeting of the POSIX
committees.  I will also explain what happened during the
IEEE P1003.1 balloting, and why there is going to be another
round of review and comment during May.  In addition I will
discuss what is going on with the National Bureau of
Standards (NBS) Federal Information Processing Standards
(FIPS), and how this will effect both implementors and
programmers in the short and long term.  Those of you who
saw the first article in this series will remember that the
title was "An update on UNIX and C Standards Activities."
That changed this time because the ANSI X3J11 meeting isn't
until mid-April, and there hasn't been too much going on
between meetings (other than a public review).  Next quarter
I will return to the C arena as well.

P1003.1 Final Ballot?

Those of you who saw the first issue of this column may
remember that I reported on the status of the P1003.1
balloting.  At that time I stated that the standards would
be fully ratified in March...  Well, I was wrong.  Although
the IEEE review board gave the standard conditional
approval, it did not pass in it's first round of balloting,
nor did it pass in the first recirculation for review and
comment.  Needless to say, I was a little surprised, but
there were many factors that figured into the problem, and
it just wasn't to be.

P1003.1 Balloting?, April 17, 198S8hane P. McCarron, NAPS Inc.


Standards Update           - 2 -          USENIX Association

I have been asked by many people exactly what went on.  In
the interest of clearing the air, below you will find a
chronological account of the balloting procedure.  I have
also outlined what the IEEE requirements for balloting are,
and how P1003.1 worked within these constraints.  Even
though you many finish reading the summary with an uneasy
feeling about the standards process, please keep in mind
that until recently there have been no large IEEE standards.
The procedures were designed for 4 page documents describing
the characteristics of three-phase power, not for 400 page
documents specifying all the characteristics of an operating
system.

On November 15th the Standard went out to the balloting
group.  The balloting group consists of IEEE or IEEE
Computer Society members who have indicated an interest in
voting on this standard.  When a balloter votes no, they
must return a document which states their specific
objections, and what can be done to resolve them.  Although
specific wording is not required, it is encouraged.

On December 15th (actually, a little after) balloting on the
standard closed.  The official IEEE length of a balloting
period is 30 days, or until 75% of the balloting group
members have returned a ballot, whichever is later.  When
75% of the ballots had been returned, the standard did not
have the necessary percentage of yes votes (75%) for
approval.  At this point the standard and the ballots were
turned over to the Technical Reviewers for resolution.

On January 15th (or so) the committee chair started to
assemble the ballot resolution documents for recirculation
to the balloting group.  The resulting document was a
summary of all the changes made to the standard to resolve
balloting objections or comments.  In all there were 140
pages of changes, and (unfortunately) they were poorly
organized and formatted.  In my own defense (as a Technical
Reviewer) I can only say that the process was rushed a
little, and I procrastinated a little.  Also, communication
between the Technical Reviewers was a little lacking, and
the guidelines for reviewing and acting on ballots were
unclear.  This is all kind of tragic, but it was certainly
an educational experience for all concerned.

On February 5th the resolution document was resubmitted to
the balloting group for a 10 day review period that was to
start on the 15th.  Unfortunately the mail was held up until
the 15th (or in some cases the 17th) and many balloting
group members did not receive the recirculation document
until the 20th or later, for return to the IEEE Standards
office by the 25th.  Worse yet, the IEEE balloting

P1003.1 Balloting?, April 17, 198S8hane P. McCarron, NAPS Inc.


Standards Update           - 3 -          USENIX Association

procedures state that if the technical reviewers have
resolved all objections in a ballot, that ballot
automatically becomes a yes.  The balloter must specifically
indicate that his/her ballot is still negative.  This was
not made very clear to the balloting group, and many people
did not resubmit a ballot.

Fortunately many people did complain about the short review
period and the problems with the recirculation document.
Eventually it was discovered that the 10 day period that
IEEE stipulates for reviews is a minimum, not a maximum.
There was a lot of finger pointing and complaining on all
sides, and in the end it was decided that even though the
standard had the necessary 75% approval, there would be a
second recirculation.

During the week of March 7th the IEEE Standards Board met.
In spite of all the problems with the standard, and all of
the letters of protest that they received (including one
from each of the Institutional Representatives, if I am not
mistaken), the board conditionally approved the standard.
[You're not mistaken: the Institutional Representatives of
all three of USENIX, /usr/group, and X/OPEN sent letters of
protest to the Standards Board; I also spoke to the
Standards Activities Group directly about the time limit
problem.  -jsq] This conditional approval is an
unprecedented event (as far as I can tell) and means that
the standard can become fully ratified before the next
meeting of the standards board once the second recirculation
has been completed and it has sufficient positive ballots.
There was a lot of screaming about this as well, but somehow
it happened.

During the week of March 14th the POSIX committees met in
Washington D.C.  Throughout the meetings the co-chair of
P1003.1 met with each of the Technical Reviewers and very
carefully went through their sections of the document,
making sure that all objections and comments had been
considered, processed, and responded to.  This was an
incredibly time consuming and painful process, but I believe
that it resulted in a much better standard.  During the last
few weeks the Technical Reviewers have continued to work
closely with the co-chair to get the second recirculation
document put together.  It should be completed and sent to
the Technical Reviewers (as a safety check) in mid-April.
Once the Reviewers think that it is clean enough, it will be
sent out to the balloting group for a second review and
comment period.

The second recirculation will be handled quite a bit
differently than the first.  All members of the balloting

P1003.1 Balloting?, April 17, 198S8hane P. McCarron, NAPS Inc.


Standards Update           - 4 -          USENIX Association

group will receive a new copy of the standard (Draft 12.3)
that will have change bars only in those places where
changes have been made as a result of balloting objections
or comments.  In addition, each balloter will receive a
document detailing all of the unresolved objections, what
their nature is, and why they were not resolved.  The
balloting group will have a longer period to respond to this
document (> 10 days), but they shouldn't need much more
time, as most of the changes in the document were already
detailed in the first recirculation document (although they
were not made in context - that is to say they were not in a
new draft, but rather listed as changes to draft 12).  At
the end of this recirculation and balloting period it is
believed by most members of the committee that the standards
will be complete.

The time frame for all of this is late April/early May.

I apologize for the length of this summary, but I think it
is important that everyone know just what happened.  Of
course, this is just one man's perspective, but I think that
it is a fair one.  I believe that the completed standard
will be one which was carefully considered and designed,
even if it won't make everyone happy.

P1003.1 Balloting?, April 17, 198S8hane P. McCarron, NAPS Inc.

Volume-Number: Volume 14, Number 5