Document: IEEE P1003.2/N9807

						ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG15 N__

Title: NP for POSIX additional utilities

Source: DS

Date: 1997-10-20

Status: MB contribution

Project: New project

Action: For WG15 consideration


Here is an NP as requested in WG15 AI 9705-07


1. Title

Additional POSIX utilitities.

2. Scope

The scope of the work is to create an amendmend to ISO/IEC 9945-2
POSIX Shell and Utilities. The areas covered are:
       a simple editor
       Source version control utilities
       compression utilities

3. Purpose and justification

JTC1 has assigned the project JTC1.22.21.02.01 "POSIX Shell and
Utilities" for development to JTC1/SC22 in its WG15.

It is proposed to establish a new project to produce an amendmend
to this standard with the specific contents here mentioned.

The  purpose and justification for each of the components are:

1.   Simple editor.
     The current standard has an editor "vi", but that utility is
     using a number of modes, which has been known to make novice
     users make errors, and the command structure is also cryptic
     to the novice or occasional user. There is a need to have a
     simpler editor, alog the lines of what    is done in other
     operating systems such as MS windows "notesblock" or the
     UNIX editor "pine" from University of Washington.

2.   Source version control utilities
     For development there is a need to have a version control
     set of utilities to be able to track versions and to have
     several versions of a system running. Candidates for this
     utility set is SCCS and RCS.

3.   Compression utilities
     To be able to save disk space, compression utilities are
     needed. Compression  often reduces the need for disk space
     with 50 % with considerable economic savings as a
     consequence. Candidates are "compress" "uncompress" and
     "zcat" from the Open Group and "gzip" "gunzip" from GNU.

The utilities mentioned above are widely implemented and deployed
worldwide.

4. Programme of Work

An amendmend to an international standard is expected to be
developed  for this project.

5. Relevant documents to be considered

ISO/IEC 9945-2:1993 POSIX Shell and Utilities
The Open Group Single UNIX specification
Manual for pine
Manual for rcs
Manual for GNU zip.

6. Cooperation and liaison

The Open Group
Free Software Foundation

7. Preparatory work offered with target date(s)

It is proposed that the project be assigned to JTC1/SC22/WG15.

A CD document will be ready for registration 18 months after
approval of the project by JTC1.

Keld Simonsen (Denmark) is the proposed editor for this standard.

There will not be a need for a maintenance agency nor a
registration authority for this project.

There are no known requirements for coding for this proposed
standard.

The proposed standard does not concern known patented items.