Standards Update (2: NBS POSIX FIPS)

[Moderator, John S. Quarterman]

                      Standards Update
           An update on UNIX Standards Activities

                       April 17, 1988

             Written for the USENIX Association
              by Shane P. McCarron, NAPS Inc.

NBS POSIX FIPS

As I reported last quarter, the National Bureau of Standards
has specified an Federal Information Processing Standard for
POSIX.  This FIPS has now been called an Interim FIPS, and
is based on Draft 12 of the POSIX standard (the draft that
went to the balloting group).  This is unfortunate, since
the post balloting draft is significantly different in a
number of areas.  Also, the NBS has made some changes in
their requirements for the FIPS since I last reported them.
As of this writing the POSIX Interim FIPS for the System
Services Interface is not official.  It is going through the
government signature maze within the Department of Commerce,
and is expected to emerge sometime in April.

This Interim FIPS will remain the standard until the P1003.1
standard is completed.  Sometime after that the NBS will put
together a final FIPS based on .1.  Unfortunately, this may
not be for several months after .1 is completed.  In the
mean time government agencies will be generating Requests
for Procurement (RFPs) which stipulate the Interim FIPS.

What this means for systems implementors is not entirely
clear.  The government will be requiring (at least for a
little while) a standard that is in many ways incompatible
with the final P1003.1 document.  Obviously implementors
have two options: 1) put together POSIX conforming systems
and wait until the final FIPS is complete before selling any
systems, or 2) put together a FIPS conforming system and be
able to start selling immediately.  Fortunately implementors
have an out here - many of them have release cycles lasting
anywhere from 6 to 18 months.  By the time there is a POSIX
standard and they get their implementation ready to be
released, the FIPS will have changed to reflect the final
standard...  Maybe.

What it means to application developers is a little more
obvious.  Software that is in development today is probably
too far along to consider making it POSIX conformant - or
worse yet, ANSI C conformant.  Software that is not yet in
programming is going to take quite a while to get to market,
so it can be made POSIX conformant without having to worry
about the Interim FIPS.

NBS POSIX FIPS, April 17, 1988  Shane P. McCarron, NAPS Inc.


Standards Update           - 2 -          USENIX Association

In addition to this first FIPS, the NBS has stated that it
is going to be releasing several more Interim FIPS based on
some of the other POSIX work in progress, as well as the
work of other groups (like AT&T and the SVID).  During the
POSIX meetings in Washington, Roger Martin from the NBS (and
also chair of P1003.3 - Testing and Verification) made
presentations to the various committees, explaining what the
NBS intends to do in the next year with Interim FIPS:

In May or June an Interim FIPS for the Shell and Tools
interface (POSIX P1003.2) will be proposed.  It will be
based on Draft 6 of the .2 document, and will contain (at
least) the command set from that document.  It may also
contain text from that document, or in cases where the text
is felt to be immature, will contain text from the SVID or
some other source.  This Interim FIPS will be based on Draft
6 until the final standard is completed sometime in later
1989.

In addition, the NBS will be releasing several other FIPS.
These will be in the areas of Terminal Interface Extensions,
System Administration, and Advanced Utilities.  These are
all terms from the SVID, and relate to just the things that
you think they do.  The Advanced Utilities FIPS may be
rolled into the P1003.2 FIPS, since .2 encompasses most of
those items that they wanted in there.  The others will be
based directly on the SVID (as far as I know).  These are
all to be in place by the end of 1988.  This is an ambitious
schedule, even for NBS.  However if they meet it, it will
mean that by the end of this year the government will have
standards on most aspects of the UNIX operation system, and
system implementors and application developers will have to
conform.

NBS POSIX FIPS, April 17, 1988  Shane P. McCarron, NAPS Inc.

Volume-Number: Volume 14, Number 6