Scope and Purpose of IEEE P1003 "UNIX Standards" Committee

[John Quarterman]

From: John Quarterman (moderator) <jsq at ut-sally.UUCP>
Topic: IEEE P1003 "UNIX Standards" committee statement of scope and purpose

I've received the following from the chair of the committee for posting.


A.003.2
15JAN85
           Scope and Purpose of the IEEE P1003 Working Group

"To define a standard operating system interface and environment based
on the  UNIX Operating System documentation to support application
portability at the source level. (UNIX is a trademark of Bell Labs)"

This effort entails three major components:

1.  Definitions - Terminology and objects referred to in the document.
    In the case of objects, the structure, operations that modify these,
    and the effects of these operations need to be documented as well.
    (Sample Term:  Pipe, Sample Object:  File Descriptor)

2.  Systems Interface and Subroutines (C-Language Binding)
	This area includes:

    A.  The range of interface & subroutines in the /usr/group document
    B.  IOCTL/TermIO
    C.  IFDEF Specifications
    D.  Real Time (Contiguous files, synchronization, shared data, priority
        scheduling, etc.)
    E.  Device interface, including Termcaps/TermIO
    F.  Job Control, Windowing
    G.  Network Interface (but not Protocol)
    H.  Distributed Systems
    I.  Device Drivers
    J.  Error Handling & Recovery

3.  User interface issues, including:

    A.  Shell, Command Set, Syntax
    B.  Portability - Media/Formats
    C.  Error Handling & Recovery

In all of these areas, consideration will be given to defining the impact on
security, international usage (language and character sets, etc.), and 
application needs such as transaction processing.

The following areas may require review and commentary, perhaps even revisions
and updates, but are outside of the scope of the current effort:  Network
Protocols, Graphics, DBMS, Record I/O.

Two areas are explicitly outside of the scope of the group:  Binary compati-
bility/exchange of software in executable form, and the end-user interface
(where ease-of-use is a critical issue).

Target "consumers" of the documents are:  Systems implementations (including
AT&T Licensees, those developing compatible systems, and those implementing 
"hosted" systems), and application implementors - for areas 1 and 2.  With
Area 3, multivendor systems integrators and shell users are also identified 
as document consumers.

All of these efforts will not occur at once.  The initial document for 
balloting will be based on Section 1 and 2-A and B above.  As this goes 
through the balloting process, additional areas in 2 and 3 will be readied 
for balloting.  At this point, it is not clear if this will represent separate
revisions of a common document, separate "chapters" or "modules" of a common 
document, or separate standards documents.

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John Quarterman,   UUCP:  {ihnp4,seismo,harvard,gatech}!ut-sally!jsq
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