To all members of the Posix Panel; The deadline for the Panel's recommendation on the seven new Posix NPs has been brought forward to Monday, 3-February, when the special IST/5 meeting on funding will find time to consider these too. I've had some response from Panel members, and some input from IST/-/10, on comments we should make; I hope I've captured those thoughts below. PLEASE REPLY ASAP TO ME IF I'VE MISSED ANYTHING OR MALIGNED ANYONE, OTHERWISE THIS IS THE RECOMMENDATION I'LL PRESENT ON MONDAY. I will also be asked for the Panel's recommendation on the DIS vote for 9945-2 (P1003.2 Draft 11.2, September 1991 - the 1000 page draft that some of you asked for copies of...) In the absence of (any) negative comments I'll submit a recommendation of YES. Thanks for your help, Dave. IST/5/-/15 Recommendations to IST/5 on NP Proposals in JTC1 N1672 - N1678 Attached are a number of comments on the set of seven Posix NPs which were circulated through the BSI in early December. IST/5/-/15 agreed by email in March 1991 that ISO WG15 should submit these NP proposals to ISO JTC1 for approval as 'new' items of work for WG15. IST/5/-/15 recommends that IST/5 votes 'YES' to each of the proposed items, so that ISO work on receiving and vetting the Drafts can proceed. Detailed comments on each of the proposed new work items follows: IST/5/-/15 is aware that the objection voiced in JTC1/SC22 N1065, (BSI 91/68611, the additional UK National comments on three of the previous Posix NP proposals), which was that the description of the work in those proposals was too vague could also be applied to some of this set of seven NPs, but without exception they all have a well developed draft as input. In four cases out of the seven the UK has had active participation in the development of the IEEE drafts through IST/5/-/15 members who have attended the IEEE groups concerned. N1672 . Test Methods for Measuring Conformance to Posix. (IEEE Std 1003.3-1990: "IEEE Standard for information technology - test methods for measuring conformance to Posix", 17-Apr-1991) (BSI's IST/5/-/15 has had an active member on the WG15 Rapporteur Group on Conformance Testing since its inception. Test assertions for the individual parts of IS 9945:1990 developed using the principles contained in 1003.3, will be and are being used as the basis for Posix Test Suites). Recommended vote: YES with comments... . It is important that IEEE 1003.3 be developed into an ISO standard as soon as possible, however IEEE 1003.3 is not in itself sufficient to define Conformance Testing for Posix because: a) It contains no formal testing model. This leads to confusion. b) There is no provision for standardised documentation. This will also lead to confusion and undesirable differences between testing laboratory practice. c) IEEE 1003.3 contains no procedures for the validation of test tools or for the testing of OSE profiles derived from more than one standard. . IEEE 1003.3 concentrates on providing guidelines on the derivation of test assertions from base standards and how test suites can be conformant. It is thus primarily aimed at test suite developers and users of test suites (suppliers of implementations). It doesn't adequately address the issues which affect mutual recognition of test results and test reports. These are the issues which are of importance to test laboratories and procurement agencies. The need for standardisation has become more pressing because of the potentially large number of test laboratories that will become involved in this area. Additionally there may be more than one test suite per base standard/profile. . IEEE 1003.3-1991 is a necessary but not sufficient source document to form an ISO standard: other documents such as ISO 9646 Parts 1 (general terminology) through 5 (testing model) to 6, and EN 45001 to EN 45014 should be considered as additional source documents. N1673 . Guide to Posix Open Systems Environments. (IEEE P1003.0 "Guide to Posix-based Open System Environments", available for WG15 R&C 4Q91). (The full set of standards under development in the IEEE Posix project is substantial. The Posix Guide attempts to provide an overview of this mass of documentation, and to indicate how it interrelates.) Recommended vote: YES with comments... . IST/5/-/15 is satisfied that the base document for this proposed NP is sufficiently mature. . It is felt that the title "Guide to Posix Open Systems Environments" could be be confusing to the uninitiated and possibly embarrassing to SC22. A suggested retitling is simply "Guide to Posix standards". N1674 . Posix - Part 1: System API Addendum. (IEEE P1003.1a: LIS form of Posix System Interface extensions). (The base document for this NP is a series of amendments to the ISO 9945-1:1990 document. Its purpose is to modify and extend the standard to permit harmonisation with other parts of the standard already in preparation in ISO. The suggested changes will also synchronise the ISO 9945-1 standard with the development of the IEEE 1003.1 equivalent). Recommended vote: YES with comments... . The UK welcomes this NP as being fundamental to the continued development and harmonisation of the set of ISO Posix standards with those under development in the IEEE. N1675 . Posix - Part 1: System API Addendum (For Real Time) (IEEE P1003.4b: system interface extensions related to real time operations). (This document introduces new Real Time functionality covering process timeouts and spawning - a faster form of the existing Posix fork() function - to support Real Time applications. Again the rationale for the NP is largely to retain synchronisation with the IEEE standard). Recommended vote: YES with comments... . The UK welcomes this NP as being fundamental to the continued development and harmonisation of the set of ISO Posix standards with those under development in the IEEE. N1676 . Posix - Part 2: Shell & Utility Addendum. (IEEE P1003.2b: extensions to the Posix Shell and utility environments). (N1676 describes a document produced as a result of 9945-2 and UPE addendum ballot comments and objections. It covers problems discovered in the file interchange format definitions). Recommended vote: YES with comments... . The UK welcomes this NP as being fundamental to the continued development and harmonisation of the set of ISO Posix standards with those under development in the IEEE. N1677 . Posix - Part 2: System API Security Addendum. (IEEE P1003.6: Posix Security services). (This NP introduces additional functionality to provide Posix with an integrated set of security features, where these are required by users. Drafts of the IEEE work have been circulated to WG15; a 'secure' Posix profile is vital to the acceptance of Posix-compliant systems in security-sensitive installations. IST/5/-/15 has a member who is active in the SC22/WG15 Security Rapporteur Group and who is the liaison from WG15 to ISO SC21/WG1 on security issues). Recommended vote: YES with comments... . The UK welcomes this NP as being fundamental to the continued development and harmonisation of the set of ISO Posix standards with those under development in the IEEE. . The UK notes that this NP will have common interest with work within the scope of SC21/WG1 (?) and approves the liaison already established from WG15's Rapporteur Group on Security to that group. N1678 . Posix - Part 2: Shell & Utility Security Addendum. (IEEE P1003.6: Posix Security considerations). (This NP proposes the equivalent security functionality at the user interface level to that proposed in N1677 at System Kernel level - the two are symbiotic, and this separate NP is required as a result of the partitioning of the original work item. Both are required in order to maintain synchronisation with the development of the standard in the IEEE). Recommended vote: YES with comments... . The UK welcomes this NP as being fundamental to the continued development and harmonisation of the set of ISO Posix standards with those under development in the IEEE. . The UK notes that this NP will have common interest with work within the scope of SC21/WG1 (?) and approves the liaison already established from WG15's Rapporteur Group on Security to that group. IST/5/-/15 (Posix panel) 30-January-1992