C and ANSI Standard

[Hokey]

Pardon me for jumping in without being aware of the context, but I am
a voting member of both the ANSI UNIX standards committee as well as
the ANSI MUMPS committee (X11.1).  *PLEASE* don't wait until the standards
committee proposes a draft.  If you have an idea or a complaint, make
yourself heard *NOW*.  In my experience on both committees, the proposed
standards are sent out after everybody has agreed on what the standard
*will* be.  I took a poll on the preferred method of file locking under
Unix before the Salt Lake City meeting.  The results of the poll were
to implement something other than the proposed standard (I will publish
these to the net Real Soon Now).  The other folks on the committee said
"Too late, we've already submitted the standard.  Besides, if people
wanted something else, they should have spoken up earlier."
The experience was quite infuriating, so I haven't posted the results
of the survey yet.

Understand that the difficult issues are the center of great intellectual
*or* emotional debate.  Sooner or later the committee gets sick and tired
of debating the issues and makes decisions.  These issues are *not* easy
to reopen, as there is a lot of pressure to get the standard out as soon
as possible.  Since the ANSI committees are not well funded, nobody really
wants to reprint the proposals, as the new ones must be resent to a lot
of people.

I have suggested for a year and a half that the UNIX standards discussions
be held on the net.  I was amazed that there was so much resistance to the
idea.  The committee felt that access to the net by committee members was
not as widespread as it should be.  As far as I was concerned, if an
individual or organization is interested in the UNIX Standard, and they
are willing to send individuals to meetings, the cost of a modem (if one
doesn't exist on-site already) is trivial.  Net connections are easy!
The discussions could be held in a moderated group, to avoid the problems
of general net traffic.  People at the SLC meeting decided to give the
net a try for the UNIX Standards discussions.  How much discusson have
you seen?

Please forgive the digression.  My point, again, is to let yourself
be heard before it is too late.  You will have to live with the results.
-- 
Hokey           ..ihnp4!plus5!hokey
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