Standards Update, USENIX Standards Watchdog Committee

[jsh at usenix.org]

From:  <jsh at usenix.org>


           An Update on UNIX*-Related Standards Activities

                              June, 1990

                 USENIX Standards Watchdog Committee

                   Jeffrey S. Haemer, Report Editor

USENIX Standards Watchdog Committee

Jeffrey S. Haemer <jsh at ico.isc.com> reports on spring-quarter
standards activities

What these reports are about

Reports are done quarterly, for the USENIX Association, by volunteers
from the individual standards committees.  The volunteers are
familiarly known as snitches and the reports as snitch reports.  The
band of snitches and I make up the working committee of the USENIX
Standards Watchdog Committee.  Our job is to let you know about things
going on in the standards arena that might affect your professional
life -- either now or down the road a ways.

We don't yet have active snitches for all the committees and sometimes
have to beat the bushes for new snitches when old ones retire or can't
make a meeting, but the number of groups with active snitches
continues to grow (as, unfortunately, does the number of groups).

We know we currently need snitches in 1003.6 (Security), 1003.11
(Transaction Processing), 1003.13 (Real-time Profile), and nearly all
of the 1200-series POSIX groups, There are probably X3 groups the
USENIX members would like to know about that we don't even know to
look for watchdogs in.  If you're active in any other standards-
related activity that you think you'd like to report on, please drop
me a line.  Andrew Hume's fine report on X3B11.1 is an example of the
kind of submission I'd love to see.

If you have comments or suggestions, or are interested in snitching
for any group, please contact me (jsh at usenix.org) or John
(jsq at usenix.org).  If some of the reports make you interested enough
or indignant enough to want to go to a POSIX meeting, or you just want
to talk to me in person, join me at the next set, July 16-20, at the
Sheraton Tara, in Danvers, Massachusetts, just outside of Boston.

The USENIX Standards Watchdog Committee also has both a financial
committee -- Ellie Young, Alan G. Nemeth, and Kirk McKusick (chair);

__________

  * UNIX is a registered trademark of AT&T in the U.S. and other
    countries.

June, 1990 Standards Update        USENIX Standards Watchdog Committee


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and a policy committee -- the financial committee plus John S.
Quarterman (chair).

An official statement from John:

     The basic USENIX policy regarding standards is:
          to attempt to prevent standards from prohibiting innovation.
     To do that, we

        + Collect and publish contextual and technical information
          such as the snitch reports that otherwise would be lost in
          committee minutes or rationale appendices or would not be
          written down at all.

        + Encourage appropriate people to get involved in the
          standards process.

        + Hold forums such as Birds of a Feather (BOF) meetings at
          conferences.  We sponsored one workshop on standards.  And
          are cosponsoring another in conjunction with IEEE, UniForum,
          and EUUG.  (Co-chairs are Shane P. McCarron
          <ahby at uiunix.org> and Fritz Schulz <fritz at osf.osf.org>.
          Contact them for details.)

        + Write and present proposals to standards bodies in specific
          areas.

        + Occasionally sponsor White Papers in particularly
          problematical areas, such as IEEE 1003.7 (in 1989).

        + Very occasionally lobby organizations that oversee standards
          bodies regarding new committee, documents, or balloting
          procedures.

        + Starting in mid-1989, USENIX and EUUG (the European UNIX
          systems Users Group) began sponsoring a joint representative
          to the ISO/IEC JTC1 SC22 WG15 (ISO POSIX) standards
          committee.

     There are some things we do not do:

        + Form standards committees.  It's the USENIX Standards
          Watchdog Committee, not the POSIX Watchdog Committee, not
          part of POSIX, and not limited to POSIX.

        + Promote standards.

        + Endorse standards.

June, 1990 Standards Update        USENIX Standards Watchdog Committee


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     Occasionally we may ask snitches to present proposals or argue
     positions on behalf of USENIX.  They are not required to do so
     and cannot do so unless asked by the USENIX Standards Watchdog
     Policy Committee.

     Snitches mostly report.  We also encourage them to recommend
     actions for USENIX to take.

          John S. Quarterman, USENIX Standards Liaison

June, 1990 Standards Update        USENIX Standards Watchdog Committee

Volume-Number: Volume 20, Number 65