Standards Update, IEEE 1003.1: System services interface

[Dominic Dunlop]

From:  Dominic Dunlop <domo at tsa.co.uk>

In article <754 at longway.TIC.COM> gwyn at smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn) fulminates
> The ANSI magtape format is simply inappropriate.  UNIX archives were
> designed to be single files, making it simple to transport them by
> means other than magnetic tape.  In this modern networked world, for
> the most part magnetic tape is an anachronism.  Any archive format
> standard for UNIX should not depend on the archive supporting
> multiple files, tape marks, or any other non-UNIX concept.

Er.  As Jason Zions points out in <770 at longway.TIC.COM>,
> A significant branch of the UNIX(tm)-system and POSIX research community
> believes "All the world's a file"; the Research Unix V.8 and Plan 9 folks
> are among the leaders here. I feel only slightly squeamish about accusing
> them of having only a hammer in their toolbelt; of *course* everything
> looks like a nail!

The network as a featureless data stream is another example of the same
``traditional'' thinking in the UNIX community.  Actually, the
datagram-based schemes favoured in the US (oversimplifying grossly, we
Europeans have a preference for connection-based systems which do deliver
streams) can provide nice record boundaries, which could in turn be used to
delimit labels for the proposed tape archive format (after adding some
reliability and sequencing).  Just because the format is based on IS 1003
for labelled magnetic tapes does not mean to say that it cannot be used on
other media, networks among tham.  After all, tar's a format for blocked
magnetic tapes, but that hasn't stopped us moving tar archives over
networks.
-- 
Dominic Dunlop

Volume-Number: Volume 20, Number 96