Standards Update, USENIX Standards Watchdog Committee

[John S. Quarterman]

From: John S. Quarterman <jsq at usenix.org>

In article <500 at longway.TIC.COM> Doug Gwyn <gwyn at smoke.brl.mil> writes

>>A key to success will be keeping enough of the original dot one
>>participants available and active to insure consistency.

>Good luck with this.  Personally, I couldn't afford to pay the dues
>and limited my membership to 1003.2 once Std 1003.1-1988 was published.

I will add the possibility of subsidising some IEEE group memberships
(mailing list subscriptions) to the annual standards proposal I'm writing
for the USENIX board meeting at the end of the month.

>>X3J11
>>A single individual, Russell Hansberry, is blocking the official
>>approval of the ANSI standard for C on procedural grounds.  At some
>>point, someone failed to comply with the letter of IEEE rules for
>>ballot resolution.  and Hansberry is using the irregularity to delay
>>adoption of the standard.

>This is misstated.  IEEE has nothing to do with X3J11 (other than
>through the 1003.1/X3J11 acting liaison, at the moment yours truly).

You're right.  As publisher, I should have caught that.
Thanks for the clarifications and updates on the situation.

>There is no doubt a need for X standardization, but it makes no
>sense to bundle it in with POSIX.

Technically, it isn't POSIX.  That's why it's IEEE 1201, not IEEE 1003.
However, since 1201 seems to always meet concurrently with 1003, I'm
not sure what practical difference there is.

>Someone smart has already shown us better ways to do graphics.
>(If you've been reading ACM TOG and the USENIX TJ, you should have
>already seen some of these.)

Could you be talked into posting a summary article on this?

>By the way, I could use more information about API's XVT.  How can
>I obtain it?

If no one else posts information on this, I will dig it up and do so.
There have been papers on XVT in the Brussels EUUG Conference Proceedings
(April 1989) and the Baltimore USENIX Conference Proceedings (June 1989).
Naturally, those seem to be the two volumes missing from my shelf.


As moderator of the newsgroup, I would ordinarily have waited a few
days before replying on the above subjects, so that other people would
have a chance first.  However, I'm leaving tomorrow morning for New Orleans,
so I thought it best to respond now.  Jeff Haemer is already there, so you
may not hear more from him this week.

I hope to hear more discussion on Jeff's and Doug's points.

Volume-Number: Volume 18, Number 14