Reactions to the 12/1989 Standard Summaries

[Moderator, John S. Quarterman]

>From: randall at 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 at 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 at longway.tic.com>

Volume-Number: Volume 17, Number 87