Access to UNIX-Related Standards

Sun Jul 24 10:45:32 AEST 1988

From: std-unix at uunet.uu.net (Moderator, John S. Quarterman)

This is the latest in a series of similar comp.std.unix articles.
Corrections and additions to this article are solicited.

There are two companion articles, posted at the same time as this one
and with subjects ``Access to UNIX User Groups and Publications'' and
``Calendar of UNIX-related Events.''

Also note that Shane McCarron now writes a quarterly summary report for
USENIX soon after each IEEE 1003 meeting for posting in comp.std.unix
and in ;login:, the Newsletter of the USENIX Association.

Changes from last posting:  NBS workshops.  USENIX Standards Watchdog.

Access information is given in this article for the following standards:
IEEE 1003.1 (operating system interface), 1003.2 (shell and tools),
	1003.3 (testing and verification), 1003.4 (real time),
	1003.5 (ADA binding), 1003.6 (security), 1003.0 (POSIX guide).
NBS FIPS.
/usr/group Technical Committee Subcommittees on distributed file system,
	network interface, graphics/windows, database, internationalization,
	performance measurements, realtime, security, and super computing.
X3H3.6 (display committee)
X3J11 (C language)
/usr/group 1984 Standard
System V Interface Definition (SVID, or The Purple Book)
X/OPEN PORTABILITY GUIDE (The Green Book)
4.3BSD Manuals

UNIX is a Registered Trademark of AT&T.
IEEE is a trademark of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers,
	Inc.:  POSIX is no longer a trademark.
X/OPEN is a licensed trademark of the X/OPEN Group Members.

The IEEE P1003 Portable Operating System Interface for Computer
Environments Committee is sometimes known colloquially as the UNIX
Standards Committee.  They published the 1003.1 "POSIX" Trial Use
Standard in April 1986.  According to its Foreword:

	The purpose of this document is to define a standard
	operating system interface and environment based on the
	UNIX Operating System documentation to support application
	portability at the source level.  This is intended for
	systems implementors and applications software developers.

Published copies are available at $19.95, with bulk purchasing discounts
available.  Call the IEEE Computer Society in Los Angeles

		714-821-8380

and ask for Book #967.  Unfortunately, this only works for multiple copies.
But the following mail address works for single copies:

		IEEE Computer Society
		P.O. Box 80452
		Worldway Postal Center
		Los Angeles, Ca. 90080

Include a check for $19.95 + $4 for shipping and handling.  For UPS
shipping, add another $4.  Or contact:

		IEEE Service Center
		445 Hoes Ln.
		Piscataway, NJ 08854

and ask for "IEEE 1003.1 Trial Use Standard" - stock number SH10546.

The Trial Use Standard will be available for comments for a period such
as a year.  The current target for a Full Use Standard is Summer 1988.
Initial balloting is completed, and ballot resolution is in progress:
it's too late to ballot if you haven't already.

IEEE has brought the 1003.1 effort into the International Organization
for Standardization (ISO) arena.  IEEE 1003.1 Draft 12 is also a
``Draft Proposed International Standard (ISO DP)'' under SC22 WG15.
The convenor is Jim Isaak:  see below for his address.  There is a U.S.
Technical Advisory Group (TAG) to ISO SC22 WG15:  the chair is Donn
Terry of HP.

TAG meetings tend to be held wherever 1003.1 is meeting.
The next ISO SC22 WG15 meeting is:

1988 Oct 17-19,20-21	ISO SC22 & WG15	Tokyo, Japan

The National Bureau of Standards is producing a Federal Information
Processing Standard (FIPS) based on IEEE 1003.1.  It will probably
be available before the Full Use Standard, and may reflect Draft 12,
rather than the final 1003.1 standard.  For information, contact:

		Roger Martin
		National Bureau of Standards
		Building 225
		Room B266
		Gaithersburg, MD  20899
		(301)975-3295

NBS is also producing a FIPS based on IEEE 1003.2, probably from
the draft made by 1003.2 at their March meeting.

NBS sponsors a number of standards-related workshops, including:
1988 Sep 22	System Administration and Shell & Tools
1988 Sep 23	X Windows and POSIX FIPS
1988 Oct 5	POSIX Conformance Testing & Laboratory Accreditation
1988 Nov 15	POSIX Applications
1988 Nov 16	POSIX FIPS Revision
1989 Jan 17	Terminal Interface Extensions and Network Services
1989 May 16	POSIX Applications

Machine readable copies of the IEEE 1003.1 Trial Use Standard are not
and will not be available.  The same applies to copies of later drafts.

There is a paper mailing list by which interested parties may get
copies of drafts of the standard.  To get on it, or to submit comments
directly to the committee, mail to:

		James Isaak
		Chairperson, IEEE/CS P1003
		Tel.: (603)881-0480
		Fax.: (603)881-0120
		decvax!isaak
		isaak at decvax.dec.com
		Digital Equipment
		ZK03-3/Y25
		110 Spit Brook Rd.
		Nashua, NH  03062-2698

Sufficiently interested parties may join the working group.

The term POSIX actually applies to all of the P1003 subcommittees:
group	subject				co-chairs
1003.0	POSIX Guide			Al Hankinson (NBS), Kevin Lewis (DEC)
1003.1	Systems Interface		Jim Isaak (DEC), Donn Terry (HP)
1003.2	Shell and Tools Interface    Hal Jespersen (UniSoft), Don Cragun (Sun)
1003.3	Verification and Testing 	Roger Martin (NBS), Carol Raye (AT&T)
1003.4	Real Time 			Bill Corwin (Intel)
1003.5	Ada Binding for POSIX		Terry Fong (USArmy), Stowe Boyd(Compass)
1003.6	Security			Dennis Steinauer (NBS), Ron Elliot (IBM)

Inquiries regarding any of the subcommittees should go to the same address
as for 1003.1.

The next scheduled meetings of the P1003 working groups are:

1988 October 17-19,20-21 ISO SC22 Advisory Group & WG15 - Tokyo, Japan
1988 Oct 24-28	IEEE 1003	Hawaii
1989 Jan 9-13	IEEE 1003	Embassy Suites, Ft. Lauderdale, FL
1989 Apr 17(29?)	IEEE 1003	Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN
1989 Jul 10-14	IEEE 1003	San Francisco, CA
1989 Oct 16-20	IEEE 1003	Brussels (or Amsterdam)
1990 Jan 29	IEEE 1003	New Orleans, LA
1990 Apr	IEEE 1003	Montreal, Quebec

Here are some details from Hal Jespersen regarding P1003.2:

The IEEE P1003.2 "Shell and Utilities" Working Group is developing a
proposed standard to complement the 1003.1 POSIX standard.  It will
consist of

	a shell command language (currently planned to be based on the
	Bourne Shell),

	groups of utility programs, or commands,

	programmatic interfaces to the shell (system(), popen()) and
	related facilities (regular expressions, file name expansion,
	etc.)

	defined environments (variables, file hierarchies, etc) that
	applications may rely upon

	utilities for installing application programs onto conforming
	systems

which will allow application programs to be developed out of existing
pieces, in the UNIX tradition.  The scope of the standard emphasizes
commands and features that are more typically used by shell scripts or
C language programs than those that are oriented to the terminal user
with windows, mice, visual shells, and so forth.

There has been some controversy in the Working Group about clarifying
the scope of the 1003.2 standard in regard to its relationship with
1003.1.  The Working Group is attempting to produce a standard that
will assume the structure and philosophy of a POSIX system is
available, but it will not require a fully conforming implementation as
a base.  For example, it should be feasible to eventually produce a
1003.2 interface on a V7 system, or on a system very close to POSIX,
but missing a few crucial features (as long as the shell and utilities
didn't need them).  However, the proposed standard will *not* be
unnecessarily watered down simply to allow non-POSIX systems to conform.

The group is currently seeking proposals for groupings of commands that
may be offered by implementors.  As groups are identified, command
descriptions will be solicited.  There is no requirement that the commands
be in System V or BSD today, but they should realistically be commands 
that are commonly found in most existing implementations.

There are four Institutional Representatives to P1003:  John Quarterman
from USENIX, Heinz Lycklama from /usr/group, Mike Lambert from X/OPEN,
and Clem Cole from OSF.  The two from USENIX and /usr/group are also
representatives to the U.S. TAG to ISO SC22 WG15.

There is a USENIX Standards Watchdog Committee of volunteers who report
on issues raised in standards committee meetings; composite reports are
published quarterly in comp.std.unix, in ;login: (the USENIX Association
Newsletter), and in the trade press.  Occasionally, these volunteers may
speak for USENIX, if authorized by the USENIX Standards Policy Committee,
which currently consists of Alan G. Nement (USENIX President), John S.
Quarterman, Shane P. McCarron (IEEE 1003 Secretary), and Grover Righter.
Comments, suggestions, etc., may be sent to

		John S. Quarterman
		Texas Internet Consulting
		701 Brazos, Suite 500
		Austin TX 78701-3243
		+1-512-320-9031
		uunet!usenix!jsq
		jsq at usenix.org
		jsq at longway.tic.com

For comp.std.unix:
Comments:	uunet!std-unix-request std-unix-request at uunet.uu.net
Submissions:	uunet!std-unix		std-unix at uunet.uu.net

CommUNIXations (the /usr/group magazine) contains reports about every
other issue by Heinz Lycklama on the /usr/group Technical Committee meetings.

If you are interested in starting another /usr/group working group, contact
Heinz Lycklama:

		Heinz Lycklama
		Interactive Systems Corp.
		2401 Colorado Ave., 3rd Floor
		Santa Monica, CA 90404
		(213)453-8649
		decvax!cca!ima!heinz

Here is contact information for /usr/group working groups as taken from
the CommUNIXations article mentioned above.

/usr/group Working Group on Distributed File System:
	Art Sabsevitz			Frederick Glover
	AT&T Information Systems	MK02-1/H10
	190 River Road			Digital Equipment Corporation
	Summit, NJ  07933		Continental Boulevard
	201-522-6248			Merrimack, NH  03054-0430
	attunix!bump			603-884-5111
					decvax!fglover

/usr/group Working Group on Network Interface:
	Steve Albert
	AT&T Information Systems
	190 River Road, Rm. A-114
	Summit, NJ  07901
	(201)522-6104
	attunix!ssa

/usr/group Working Group on Internationalization:
	John Wu				Laurie Goudie
	Charles River Data Systems	Santa Cruz Operation
	983 Concord St.,		400 Encinal
	Framingham, MA 01701		Santa Cruz, CA 95060
	617-626-1000			408-458-1422

/usr/group Working Group on Graphics/Windows:
	Tom Greene
	Apollo Computer, Inc.
	330 Billerica Road
	Chelmsford, MA  01824
	(617)256-6600, ext. 7581

/usr/group Working Group on Realtime:
	Bill Corwin
	Intel Corp.
	5200 Elam Young Pkwy
	Hillsboro, OR 97123
	(503)681-2248

/usr/group Working Group on Database:
	Val Skalabrin
	Unify Corp.
	1111 Howe Ave.
	Sacramento, CA 95825
	(916)920-9092

/usr/group Working Group on Performance Measurements:
	Ram Chelluri		David F. Hinnant
	AT&T Computer Systems	Northern Telecom, Inc.
	Room E15B		Dept. 0226
	4513 Western Ave.	P.O. Box 13010
	Lisle, IL 60532		Research Triangle Park, NC  27709-3010
	(312)810-6223		(919) 992-1690
				...{decvax,akgua}!mcnc!rti!ntirtp!dfh	

/usr/group Working Group on Security:
	Steve Sutton			Ms. Jeanne Baccash
	Consultant, Addamax		AT&T UNIX Systems Engineering
	1107 S. Orchard			190 River Road
	Urbana, IL  61801		Summit, NJ  07901
	217-344-0996			201-522-6028
					attunix!jeanne

/usr/group Working Group on Super Computing:
	Karen Sheaffer			Robin O'Neill
	Sandia National Laboratory	Lawrence Livermore Laboratory
	P.O. Box 969			P.O. Box 5509, L560
	Livermore, CA  94550		Livermore, CA  94550
	415-422-3431			415-422-0973
					oneill#r%mfe at lll-mfe.arpa

The X3H3.6 display management committee has recently formed to develop
a model to support current and future window management systems, yet
is not based directly on any existing system.  The chair solicits
help and participation:

		Georges Grinstein
		wanginst!ulowell!grinstein

The Abstract of the 1003.1 Trial Use Standard adds:

	This interface is a complement to the C Programming Language
	in the C Information Bulletin prepared by Technical Committee X3J11
	of the Accredited Standards Committee X3, Information Processing
	Systems, further specifying an environment for portable application
	software.

X3J11 is sometimes known as the C Standards Committee.  Their liaison to
P1003 is

		Don Kretsch
		AT&T
		190 River Road
		Summit, NJ 07901

A contact for information regarding publications and working groups is

		Thomas Plum
		Vice Chair, X3J11 Committee
		Plum Hall Inc.
		1 Spruce Avenue
		Cardiff, New Jersey 08232

The current document may be ordered from

		Global Engineering Documents
		2805 McGaw
		Irvine, CA 92714
		USA
		+1-714-261-1455
		+1-800-854-7179

Ask for the X3.159 draft standard.  The price is $65.

The current X3J11 meeting schedule is:

1988 August 15-19	Cupertino, CA
1988 December 12-16	Seattle, WA
1989 April 10-11	Phoenix, AZ

The /usr/group Standard is a principal ancestor of P1003.1, X/OPEN,
and X3J11.  It may be ordered for $15.00 from:

		/usr/group Standards Committee
		4655 Old Ironsides Drive, Suite 200
		Santa Clara, California 95054
		Tel: (408)986-8840
		Fax: (408)986-1645

/usr/group also publishes an eight page document, ``Your Guide to POSIX,''
explaining what IEEE 1003 is, and a nineteen page document, ``POSIX Explored,''
about technical aspects of IEEE 1003.1, and its relations to other standards
and historical implementations.  Contact /usr/group at the above address
for details.

The System V Interface Definition (The Purple Book, or SVID).
This is the AT&T standard and is one of the most frequently-used
references of the IEEE 1003 committee.

		AT&T Customer Information Center
		Attn:  Customer Service Representative
		P.O. Box 19901
		Indianapolis, IN 46219
		U.S.A.

		800-432-6600 (Inside U.S.A.)
		800-255-1242 (Inside Canada)
		317-352-8557 (Outside U.S.A. and Canada)

	System V Interface Definition, Issue 2
	should be ordered by the following select codes:

	Select Code:	Volume:		Topics:
	320-011		Volume I	Base System
					Kernel Extension
	320-012		Volume II	Basic Utilities Extension
					Advanced Utilities Extension
					Software Development Extension
					Administered System Extension
					Terminal Volume Interface Extension
	320-013		Volume III	Base System Addendum
					Terminal Interface Extension
					Network Services Extension
	307-131		I, II, III	(all three volumes)

The price is about 37 U.S. dollars for each volume or $84 for all three.
Major credit cards are accepted for telephone orders:  mail orders
should include a check or money order, payable to AT&T.

The X/OPEN PORTABILITY GUIDE (The Green Book)
is another reference frequently used by IEEE 1003.

The X/OPEN Group is "Ten of the world's major information system
suppliers" (at time of publication, Bull, DEC, Ericsson, Hewlett-Packard,
ICL, NIXDORF, Olivetti, Philips, Siemens and Unisys and subsequently
augmented by AT&T) who have produced a document intended to promote
the writing of portable applications.  They closely follow both SVID
and POSIX, and cite the /usr/group standard as contributing, but
X/OPEN's books cover a wider area than any of those.

The book is published by

		Elsevier Science Publishers B.V.
		Book Order Department
		P.O. Box 1991
		1000 BZ Amsterdam
		The Netherlands

and distributed in the U.S.A. and Canada by:

		Elsevier Science Publishing Company, Inc.
		52 Vanderbilt Avenue
		New York, NY 10017
		U.S.A.

There are currently five volumes:
	1) System V Specification Commands and Utilities
	2) System V Specification System Calls and Libraries
	3) System V Specification Supplementary Definitions
	4) Programming Languages
	5) Data Management

They take a large number of credit cards and other forms of payment.

Comments, suggestions, error reports, etc., for Issue 2 of the Green Book
may be mailed directly to:

		xpg2 at xopen.co.uk
		uunet!mcvax!inset!xopen!xpg2

Information about X/OPEN can be requested from:

		Mike Lambert
		Technical Director
		X/OPEN Ltd
		c/o ICL BRA01
		Lovelace Road
		Bracknell
		Berkshire
		England
		+44 344 42 48 42
		mgl at xopen.co.uk
		uunet!mcvax!inset!xopen!mgl

Finally, 4.2BSD and 4.3BSD have influenced POSIX in a number of areas.
The best reference on them is the 4.3BSD manuals, published by USENIX.
An order form may be obtained from:

		Howard Press
		c/o USENIX Association
		P.O. Box 2299
		Berkeley, CA 94710

		415-528-8649
		{ucbvax,decvax}!usenix!office

4.3BSD User's Manual Set (3 volumes)		$25.00
	User's Reference Manual
	User's Supplementary Documents
	Master Index

4.3BSD Programmer's Manual Set (3 volumes)	$25.00
	Programmer's Reference Maual
	Programmer's Supplementary Documents, Volume 1
	Programmer's Supplementary Documents, Volume 2

4.3BSD System Manager's Manual (1 volume)	$10.00

Unfortunately, there are some license restrictions.
Contact the USENIX office for details.

Volume-Number: Volume 14, Number 34