IEEE P1003.2 Minutes 9-11 January 1989 (Ft. Lauderdale)

helene at attunix.att.com helene at attunix.att.com
Wed Feb 1 12:30:00 AEST 1989


From: helene at attunix.att.com

       ________________________________________________________________________
       IEEE P1003.2

       subject:	IEEE P1003.2 Meeting	      date: January 31,	1989
		Minutes	from January 9-11,
		1989			      from: Helene Armitage
						    P1003.2 Secretary
						    (201) 522-6233
						    attunix!helene

			     Meetings_Minutes

       1.  Introduction

       The IEEE	 P1003.2  Working  Group  met  in  Ft.	Lauderdale,
       Florida,	January	9-11, 1989.

       1.1  Approval_of_Minutes

       The minutes for the last	two meetings, Denver, Colorado,	and
       Honolulu, Hawaii, were reviewed and approved as distributed.

       1.2  Review_of_Action_Items

       No action items were carried from the Hawaii meeting.

       1.3  Announcements

       Donn Terry raised a concern about  the  overlap	in  meeting
       times  of the P1003.1 and P1003.2 Working Groups	for members
       interested in participating in both groups.  A show of hands
       indicated   that	  only	 one  of  current  P1003.2  meeting
       participants was	interested in attending	both working  group
       meetings.

       Marc Teitelbaum scheduled a BOF to discuss issues  with	the
       shell for Tuesday evening at 8:00.

       2.  Status_Report_on_P1003.2_Draft_8_Formal_Ballot

       Draft 8 went out	on schedule in mid-December!  February	13,
       1989  is	 the due date for ballot objections against Draft 8
       to be submitted to the IEEE office.  The	address	to obtain a
       copy of Draft 8 and to return ballots is:


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		       Bob Pritchard
		       IEEE STDS OFFICE
		       445 Hoes	Lane
		       Piscataway, NJ  08855-1331
		       (201) 562-3809

       Hal Jespersen reported that we are still	in need	of  one	 or
       more  technical	editors	 for  both  Draft  8  and  the User
       Portability Extension (UPE) work.

       Balloters are encouraged	to send	 Don  Cragun  (sun!dwc)	 an
       electronic  copy	 of their ballot. Although this	is not part
       of the formal  ballot,  it  will	 save  time  and  potential
       transcription   errors	in   production	 of  the  resulting
       document.

       Technical Reviewers met on Thursday, January 12th to discuss
       the  review  process  and  how  to handle overlapping ballot
       objections against their	chapters.

       3.  Status_of_NIST_FIPS

       Rick Kuhn distributed a draft of	the  NIST  FIPS	 for  POSIX
       Shell  and  Tools.   It	is  based  on  Draft  8	 with  some
       exceptions.  Rick pointed out that 6 months after  the  date
       of  publication	of  this  POSIX	Shell and Tools	FIPS it	may
       become effective.  Rick welcomed	comments on this Draft FIPS
       to be sent to the following address:

		       Rick Kuhn
		       National	Institute of Standards and Technology
		       Tech Bldg B266
		       Gaithersburg, MD	 20899
		       Kuhn at swe.icst.nbs.gov
		       (301) 975-3337

       4.  The_User_Portability_Extension

       The majority of	the  Ft.  Lauderdale  meetings	were  spent
       discussing  scope,  command selection, and specific commands
       for a ``User Portability	Extension'' (UPE) PAR  to  P1003.2.
       Hal  provided  a	working	draft of the UPE for use during	the
       meetings.  An official PAR for the  UPE	has  not  yet  been
       submitted.   Progress  of the UPE will depend on	obtaining a
       technical editor	for the	effort.

       4.1  Scope_for_the_UPE

       A discussion of scope for the UPE in the	large group decided
       two major issues:


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	  o The	UPE will require a P1003.2 base.

	  o Optional   commands,   and	 commands   required	for
	    conformance	to the UPE will	be decided on an individual
	    basis and clearly defined in the extension.

       The following scope was accepted	by making minor	changes	 to
       the wording of the scope	presented in the working draft.

       The 1003.2 Working Group	will begin to increase the scope of
       its  work  through  the	definition  of a ``User	Portability
       Extension.''   This  extension  will  be	 published  as	 an
       optional	 facility in a future supplement to the	base 1003.2
       standard.  Its scope is limited by two constraints:

	 1.  The ``users'' in this context are limited to the group
	     of	  users	  who	are  familiar  with  the  style	 of
	     interaction  characteristic  of   historically-derived
	     systems  based  on	 one of	the UNIX operating systems.
	     Typical  users  would  include   program	developers,
	     engineers,	or general purpose time	sharing	users.

	 2.  The environment to	be supported may  be  a	 multi-user
	     time   sharing  system  supporting	 character-oriented
	     display  terminals.   Alternatively,  it  may   be	  a
	     collection	 of  single-user systems interconnected	via
	     local area	 networks  or  telephone  lines,  but  with
	     similar   user  interfaces.   The	standard  does	not
	     include support tailored for  bit-mapped  or  graphics
	     display  terminals,  although it is expected that such
	     terminals	could  emulate	the  character	orientation
	     required by this environment.


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       4.2  UPE_Command_Selection

       The Working  Group  modified  the  original  meeting  agenda
       (attached)  to  work  in	 the  large  group Monday afternoon
       selecting command categories and	commands for the UPE.	The
       following categories and	commands resulted:

       EXTEND EXISTING UTILITIES FOR INTERACTIVE US

       Selected	Features			 Potential Features:
       command line editing			 $seconds, $random
       history					 (dynamic environment variables
       history completion			 arg list expansion
       interactive definition of PS1, PS2, ...	 file name completion
       job control (^z,	stopped	jobs)		 shell script debugging

       EDITING FILES

       Selected	Commands   Potential Commands:
       ex		   emacs
       patch
       vi

       DISPLAYING FILES

       Selected	Commands   Potential Commands:
       expand, unexpand	   col
       head		   spell
       pg/more/less	   split
       strings
       tail

       QUERY THE USER ENVIRONMENT (PROCESSES, FILES, DISK USAGE)

       Selected	Commands   Potential Commands:
       df		   cal
       du		   dc
       man		   tput
       ps		   users
			   w
			   who

       MANAGE THE USER ENVIRONMENT

       Selected	Commands		   Potential Commands:
       clear				   logout
       compress, uncompress, zcat,
       (including compression algorithm)   newgrp


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       passwd				   script

       INTERACTING WITH	OTHER USERS (INCLUDING MAIL)

       mesg
       mailx/mail/mh
       shar (including format),	unshar
       talk
       uuencode, uudecode
       write

       REMOTE LOGIN, FILE TRANSFERS AND	EXECUTION

       cu/tip/telnet
       uucp/rcp/ftp
       uuname
       uustat
       uux/rsh/rcmd

       SCHEDULE	AND CONTROL BACKGROUND TASKS
	AND PERIODICALLY-SCHEDULED WORK

       at
       batch
       crontab
       nice
       renice

       PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT

       Selected	Commands   Potential Commands:
       csplit		   cscope
       ctags		   cb/indent
       nm		   lint

       SOURCE/REVISION CONTROL (PLUS INTERNAL FORMAT)

       sccs/rcs

       OTHER IMPORTANT USER PORTABILITY	FEATURES

	(This is a place-holder	for future work.)

       The  command  names  separated  by  slashes   are   multiple
       instances  of  similar functionality.  The Working Group	was
       not able	to narrow down the choice at this meeting; some	 of
       these will undoubtedly be controversial decisions.


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       Following is a list of the commands that	were considered	and
       rejected	during the command selection discussion.  As is	the
       case with any  rejected	or  potential  command	(listed	 in
       column  2 above), these commands	will not be included in	the
       UPE unless a participant	 specifically  writes  a  proposal,
       including rationale, to be re-considered	and re-voted by	the
       large group.

       apropos	   prof
       calendar	   sdb/dbx
       cflow	   tabs
       colrm	   tset
       correct	   ul
       crypt	   uptime (maybe for P1003.7)
       cxref	   uulog (maby for P1003.7)
       dircmp	   uupick
       error	   uuto
       login	   uutrigger
       m4
       news/msgs
       nl

       4.3  Small_Working_Groups

       Three small working groups were formed to  begin	 addressing
       the  specifics  of commands in the categories defined above.
       Much of this work was  based  on	 the  working  draft  pages
       provided	 by  Hal.  Group leaders agreed	to provide Hal with
       formatted electronic copies of the  work	 completed  in	the
       small groups by the end of the week.  A brief summary of	the
       work is listed here, see	attached  foils	 for  the  specific
       work presented during the large group discussion.

	  o Interacting	With Other  Users,  Group  Leader  -  Scott
	    Sutter

	       o mesg:	Improved  wording,  implementation  details
		 will be omitted.

	       o write:	/etc/utmp will	not  be	 discussed  in	the
		 specification.

	       o talk: Network specifics will be omitted.

	       o mailx:	Network	specifics will be omitted.

	  o Displaying Files, Group Leader - Neil Winton

	       o expand, unexpand: expand foo |	unexpand -a  should
		 display identically to	cat foo.

	       o head: Multi-file behavior needs clarifying.



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	       o strings: BSD treats  a.out  files  specially,	UPE
		 will probably say that	the behavior of	strings	for
		 object	files is implementation	defined.

	       o tail: A cut down version was proposed	to  improve
		 portability  and  clarity, synopsis will be - tail
		 [+num]	[-num] [-f] [file].

	       o pg, more, less: Plan to define	a new command  most
		 based	on  a subset of	less.  most will be defined
		 to support block  mode	 terminals,  will  have	 an
		 option	 to  disable shell and editor escapes, will
		 not  include  key  mapping  or	  redefinition	 of
		 prompts.

	  o Querying the User  Environment,  Group  Leader  -  Neil
	    Winton

	       o df: Will be defined with a single portable  option
		 -P which will produce output in the form:

			device tot_kb kb_used kb_free %_used

		 Size will be in multiples  of	1024  bytes.   Disk
		 usage greater than 100% will be displayed as 100*.

	       o du: Single portable option -P will give  sizes	 in
		 bytes.

	       o file: After further discussion	in the large group,
		 it  was  ultimately rejected from inclusion in	the
		 UPE because the algorithm could not  be  specified
		 in a useful, portable way.

	       o man: Small group recommended a	minimal	 output	 of
		 NAME  and SYNOPSIS be required	for each command in
		 P1003.2.  Further discussion in  the  large  group
		 indicated potential problems with this	approach.

	       o ps: Not possible on a P1003.1 conforming system; a
		 portable -P option will be defined where possible.

	  o Schedule and Control Background Tasks, Group  Leader  -
	    Ken	Faubel

	       o at: Based on System V with the	following synopsis:

		  at  [-lr]  [-n   jobname]   [-f   filename]	[-t
		 yymmddhhmm[.ss]] timespec

		 Due	 to	 problems      associated      with
		 internationalization,	 `at   noon  next  Tuesday`
		 syntax	will not be required.



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	       o batch:	Will be	specified in terms of at

	       o crontab: Based	on System V version.

	       o nice, renice: Based on	System V  and  BSD4.3,	but
		 may  have  no	effect.	  There	was a discussion of
		 asking	 P1003.1  to  consider	adding	 a   nice()
		 function  to  allow  this  to	work  in a portable
		 manner.

	  o sccs/rcs: The small	group  proposed	 an  extended  SCCS
	    based solution with	the BSD	sccs interface command,	and
	    an enhanced	SCCS file format to  include  some  of	the
	    nice RCS features.

	    This generated much	 discussion  in	 the  large  group.
	    Based  on  a  straw	 vote Wednesday	in the large group,
	    there was support for inclusion  or	 omission  of  both
	    SCCS  and  RCS  in	the UPE, but little support for	the
	    proposed "hybrid."

       5.  Liaison_Reports_on_other_Working_groups

       Martha Nalebuff reported	on the status and command selection
       for  P1003.1  supplement.  The following	items were targeted
       for the first supplement	in June	1989:

	       fsync
	       telldir
	       seekdir
	       trunc
	       ftrunc
	       fchmod
	       putenv
	       clearenv
	       fchown

       The following items are targeted	for the	 second	 supplement
       in January 1990:

	       ftw
	       walkfs
	       setconf
	       ipc
	       get and set priority,
	       symbolic	links
	       getty
	       select or poll type mechanism

       The following items have	 been  rejected	 and  will  not	 be
       considered in either supplement:



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	       chroot
	       nice
	       getpass
	       rhangup
	       sigstack
	       crypt

       6.  Proposed_UPE_Ballot_Schedule

       Wednesday afternoon in the large	group we set the  following
       target dates for	P1003.2	UPE work and balloting:

       DATE	 |  MEETING		      |	 FOCUS
       __________|____________________________|________________________________
       April 89	 |  Minneapolis		      |	 UPE Chapter Freeze
       July 90	 |  San	Jose		      |	 UPE Command List Freeze
       October 90|  Brussels	| Continue to review UPE command specifications
       January 90|  New	Orleans		      |	 UPE Mock Ballot
       April 90	 |  Research Triangle Park, NC|	 UPE Ballot

       7.  Action_Item_Assignments

	 1.  Small group leaders should	send electronic	 copies	 of
	     the UPE command specifications worked on during the Ft
	     Lauderdale	meetings to Hal	Jespersen (sun!unisoft!hlj)
	     by	January	13, 1989.

	 2.  Hal Jespersen or Don Cragun should	 distribute  sample
	     P1003.2  macro  source  to	 interested  members of	the
	     P1003.2 committee.

       8.  Future_Meeting_Schedule

       The next	P1003.2	meeting	will be	April 24-28,  1989  in	St.
       Paul,  Minnesota.   Since  we  have  been unable	to secure a
       technical editor	for  the  UPE,	the  agenda  for  the  next
       meeting	is  somewhat  tenative,	 but  may include: two days
       resolving sticky	ballot objections against Draft	8 (Thursday
       and  Friday), and three days reviewing the UPE draft (Monday
       through Wednesday).

       Tentative subsequent meetings (note: this list  was  updated
       after  the  announcement	 that was made on Friday during	the
       Florida meeting):

       April 24-28, 1989     Minneapolis
       July 10-14, 1989	     San Jose
       October 16-20, 1989   Brussels
       January 1990	     New Orleans



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       April 1990	     Research Triangle Park, NC
       July 1990	     Seattle/Portland
       October 1990	     Albuquerque

				     Helene Armitage

       Atts.
       Attachment A-Agenda
       Attachment B-Meeting Foils


Volume-Number: Volume 16, Number 11



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