what is the status of 1003.4 ?

[Stephen R. Walli]

Submitted-by: stephe at speaker.uucp (Stephen R. Walli)

In response to Gil Tene's POSIX.4 questions:

> I am interested in knowing the current status of POSIX 1003.4. I have
> read some articles (quite) a while back, but haven't seen anything new
> on the subject.

There is a snitch report on its way within the week on the status of 
POSIX.4 after the April meeting in Chicago.

> Maybe you people out there can help me ?
> -	When is a final version of 1003.4 expected to be adopted ?

Good question. It really depends on the already strained volunteer resources
of its tech editors and tech reviewers. (I'm one of them, so I can say this.)
Draft 11 is due out anytime for ballot. Even if the technical content remains
relatively untouched, there is still language independent specifications to be
written (which I'm responsible for, so yell at me) and test assertions.

> -	What will 1003.4 include ? what sub-1003.4 parts are there ?
> 	(e.g. 1003.4a, etc.)

1003.4
------ 
Draft 9 which went out for ballot in March 1990 contained chapters on the 
following services: 

binary semaphores, process memory locking, shared memory, priority
scheduling, events, clocks and timers, IPC message passing, synch I/O, 
asynch I/O, realtime files.

Draft 10 ``fixed'' signals to replace events, and added memory mapped files 
to the shared memory chapter. 

Draft 11 will likely make major changes to (or remove) IPC, in favour of work
being done in POSIX.12 (Protocol Independent Interfaces). 

1003.4a
-------
Threads interfaces. It is currently in ballot.

1003.4b
-------
More real-time interfaces. Descibed in the forthcoming snitch.

1003.13
-------
Realtime Profiles. The group is building a small set of profiles of the 
realtime interfaces from a scaled down embedded profile up to a kitchen-sink 
do-everything profile.

> -	Where/how can I get my hands on the drafts ?

IEEE Standards Office,
445 Hoes Lane,
P.O.Box 1331,
Piscataway, NJ, USA, 
08855-1331

phone:
(908) 562-3800
 
> -	What is the current "trend" in the industry with regard
> 	to meeting 1003.4 standards ? How soon can we expect 
> 	to see 1003.4 support in major releases of vendors ?
> 	(SVR4, OSF/1, SunOS, HP-UX, Ultrix, etc.)

Ask the vendors. No, really. Standard market-speak answers include:

i)   We're tracking the standard. 
     (Some of them actually are contributing, instead of reading about it
      in ever changing ballot drafts.)

ii)  We already have real-time. (Guess who this is. The only problem is that
     it isn't standard and their eyes glaze over and they become non-commital
     after that.)

iii) We aren't pursuing the realtime market at this time, but if our customers
     ask for it, we'll provide it. (I've heard one vendor claim not to be
     pursuing the market in realtime, only to have someone else there 
     express real surprise at this statement when I repeated it in a 
     quiet corner.)

I will not risk the wrath of friends and enemies by mentioning products I 
know of that are seriously implementing the draft document interface, because
I'm bound to miss someone and some stuff was non-disclosure material. 

Hope this helps.
regards,
stephe
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Stephen R. Walli                               SRW Software 
phone: (416) 579 0304                          572 Foxrun Court,
fax:   (416) 571 1991                          Oshawa, Ontario, Canada,
speaker!stephe at mks.com   -OR-                  L1K 1N9
uunet!watmath!mks!speaker!stephe
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+



Volume-Number: Volume 24, Number 13