Posix Networking Standardisation Sixth Report to the JNT: 29 January 1992 Contents: 0. Summary 1. Introduction 2. The Development of the Posix Standard 2.0 Status of the work IEEE Overview 2.1 IEEE Group Status 2.2 Status of the work ISO Overview 3. Future Meetings Annex 1. Abbreviations Used in these Reports Annex 2. Report of the ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG15 (Posix) Meeting, Stockholm, Sweden, November 1991. Annex 3. ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22 Posix Schedule of Work 0. Summary This report covers the period from 26 September 1991 to date and is based on the paperwork output by the IEEE and ISO during that time, plus notes from the meetings of ISO WG15 and the IEEE P1003 groups in November 1991 and January 1992 respectively. The most interesting event of the January IEEE meeting in Irvine was that the GUI wars were reopened by the Standards Advisory Board (SAB) of the IEEE, which had received a direct appeal by proponents of Motif and OpenLook to begin their standardisation. SAB recommended changes to the PARs, offered them to two other groups within the IEEE, who politely refused, and then passed them back to TCOS. After a protracted debate spiked with procedural motions, SEC approved a motion to accept the modified PARs and to consider how best to progress them. Anyone reading this report who is interested in further details of the progress, or in the current draft standard of any particular group can contact me directly via: David Cannon D.Cannon@uk.ac.Exeter (0392) 263956 The University of Exeter Fax: (0392) 211630 Computer Unit Laver Building North Park Road Exeter Devon EX4 4QE 1. Introduction This is the sixth report to the Joint Network Team (JNT) of the Information Systems Committee (ISC) of the Universities Funding Council (UFC): readers are referred to the preceding reports for the background of the project. This report concentrates on the progress of the draft Posix network standards since the 26th of September 1991, based on the paperwork output by the IEEE Posix networking groups and on the work of those groups at the Irvine meeting in the USA from January 13th to 17th. 2. The Development of the Posix Standard This report is concerned only with the Posix Networking Standards, which form a sub-set of the Posix Standard as a whole (see the first report for more details), and this sub-set is: IEEE/ANSI ISO P1003.8 Transparent File Access. (Addendum to) 9945-1 P1003.11 Transaction Processing AEP. - P1003.12 Protocol Independent Network Access. " 9945-1 P1003.17 Name Space & Directory Services. " 9945-1 P1224 X.400 Gateway API. - P1238 FTAM and Common OSI Support Functions API. - The first stage of the acceptance process for each part of the Standard occurs when the group responsible feels that it has a draft which is virtually complete and which requires wider consideration and consensus: at this point the Draft is issued for mock-ballot within the IEEE. All the Draft Posix networking standards are scheduled for IEEE mock-ballot in 1992, then subsequently for formal ballot, when copies will be passed to ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG15 for review and comment. They are: IEEE Name: Schedule: P1003.8 Transparent File Access. Spring 1992 * P1003.11 Transaction Processing AEP. Spring 1992 P1003.12 Protocol Independent Interfaces (PII). Winter 1992 P1003.17 Name Space & Directory Services. Summer 1992 P1224 ASN.1 Object Management API. Spring 1992 * P1224.1 X.400 Based Electronic Messaging API Summer 1992 P1238 Common OSI Support Functions API. Spring 1992 * - These Drafts are scheduled to go to the formal IEEE ballot on these dates. Coordination of the IEEE networking groups is maintained by the Distributed Services Steering Committee (DSSC), currently chaired by Tim Baker of Ford Aerospace: at the DSSC Plenary in October it was noted that the recession in the USA was still having a widespread and adverse affect on attendance of the Posix working groups. The most serious concern was that Les Wibberley might be forced by lack of funding to drop the 1003.12 chair at a critical point in the development of the standard. IEEE funding problems are compounded by the decision (made some months ago) to hold the October 1992 meeting in Europe. Travel costs for USA-based group members are an order of magnitude higher, and meeting rooms will cost ten times more; this plus the reduction of financial support will inevitably mean fewer attendees and thus less progress at the October '92 meeting. At the IEEE January meeting the question of distribution of RPC material from X3T5.5 surfaced again; Tim Baker reported that Rod Sellars of 1003.11 (TP) has been appointed as RPC liaison by SEC. No RPC materials have been distributed through the Posix mailings since RPC work was passed to X3, although a lot of papers are generated there. Essentially it needs an expert to weed it and then to pass the relevant papers on to NAPS for distribution to interested parties. 2.0 Status of the work IEEE Overview The current list of the full set of IEEE Posix standards is as follows: 1003.0 Draft 13, September 1991 Guide to the Posix Open Systems Environment. This provides an overview of Posix and other ISO standards, describing portability of people, data and applications by referencing the Posix OSE Model. Status: IEEE Mock Ballot 4Q91 ISO SC22 review and comment 2Q92 1003.1 ISO/IEC 9945-1:1990 Posix Part 1: System API (c) System Kernel Interface. (C Language bindings) Describes file heirarchy and naming conventions, process management, system databases, device control and file interchange conventions. Status: IEEE Std. 1003.1-1988/ISO IS 9945-1:1989 IEEE Std. 1003.1-1990/ISO IS 9945-1:1990 1003.1 LIS: Draft 2, November 1991 System Application Program Interface (API) [Language-Independent] Status: IEEE Mock Ballot 4Q91 ISO SC22 review and comment 2Q92 1003.1a Draft 6, July 1991 Addendum to 1003.1, describing new functions for directory tree walking, symbolic links and an updated file interchange format. Status: IEEE Ballot 2Q92 1003.2 Draft 11.2, September 1991 Shell and Utilities. Describes Bourne-type Shell and utilities useful to applications, such as sort, grep, etc. Status: in IEEE and ISO DIS 9945-2 ballot. IEEE Std. and ISO DIS expected 2Q92. 1003.2a Draft 8, December 1991 User Portability Extension. Includes tools for programmers and experienced Unix users. Status: in IEEE Ballot ISO CD/PDAM 4Q91 1003.2b Draft 2, December 1991 Shell and Utilities - Amendment 1003.3 IEEE Std. 1003.3-1991 - Test Methods for Measuring Conformance to Posix. Describes conformance requirements for Posix- based Systems, covering 1003.1 and 1003.2 (soon) Status: IEEE Std. 1003.3-1991. 1003.3.1 Draft 13.0, 6 December 1991 Test Methods for Measuring Conformance to Posix - Part 1: System Kernel Status: in IEEE Ballot and ISO CD registration 1003.3.2 Draft 7, November 1991 Test Methods for Measuring Conformance to Posix - Part 2: Shell & Utilities Status: IEEE Ballot 2Q92 ISO SC22 review and comment 1003.4 Draft 11, 7-October 1991 Real Time Extensions to 1003.1. Covers shared memory, events, semaphores, timers priority scheduling, Synch & Asynch i/o, etc. Status: in IEEE ballot and ISO CD registration IEEE Std. expected 1Q92. 1003.4 LIS Draft 1, 1-December 1989 Real Time Extensions to 1003.1. Status: IEEE ballot TBD 1003.4a Draft 2, Jan 1990 Describes the Threads extension to 1003.4. Status: in IEEE ballot ISO CD registration 2Q92 1003.4b Draft 1, November 1991 Real Time API Extension to ISO 9945-1:1990 Describes the spawn and timeout extensions to the base standard. 1003.5 Ada Language Bindings. The Ada interface to 1003.1 (currently) Status: in IEEE ballot. ISO CD registration ?Q93 1003.6 Draft 12, September 1991 Security. Describes extensions to 1003.1 and 1003.2 to support security services such as authentication access controls and audit logging. Status: in IEEE ballot. ISO CD registration 1Q92. 1003.7 Draft 7, November 1991 System Administration Interface. Provides tools for backup/recovery, adding users etc. Status: first part to IEEE ballot 2Q91. ISO CD registration 1Q93 1003.7a Draft 2, October 1991 System Administration Interface/Printing. 1003.7b Draft 3, November 1991 System Administration Interface/Software Management. 1003.7c Draft 1, November 1991 System Administration Interface/User Management. ** 1003.8 Draft 5, 30 October 1991 Transparent File Access. Covers interfaces to NFS- and RFS-type features. Status: IEEE ballot in 4Q91 ISO CD registration 1Q92 1003.9 Fortran Language Bindings. The Fortran 77 interface to 1003.1. Status: in IEEE ballot. ISO CD registration ?Q93 1003.10 Draft 8, November 1991 Supercomputing Application Environment Profile (AEP). Status: IEEE ballot 3Q92 ** 1003.11 Draft 5, November 1991 Transaction Processing AEP. Goal is to identify the interfaces and standards relevant to On-Line Transaction Processing (OLTP) applications in Posix environments. The group is liaising with the OSI DTP group, ANSI's X3T5.5 and 1003.1, .4, and .8 groups to ensure consistency. Status: IEEE mock ballot in 1Q92 ISO WG15 review & comment 1Q92 ** 1003.12 Draft 0.3, November 1991 Protocol Independent Interfaces (PII). Describes Application Program Interfaces (APIs) for networking protocol stacks such as OSI and TCP/IP. This group has set up liaisons with ANSI X3, IEEE P802 and SCC10, together with 1003.6, .7, .11 and .17. Status: IEEE ballot in 2Q93. ISO CD registration 3Q93 1003.13 Draft 4, November 1991 Real Time Processing AEP. 1003.14 Draft 6, January 1992 Multiprocessing AEP. Status: IEEE mock ballot in 4Q91. 1003.15 Draft 8, 1 November 1991 Supercomputing Batch Extensions. Describes the Operator, user and program control of batch queues, defining the application layer batch communications protocol. Status: IEEE ballot 3Q92 ISO CD registration 1Q93 1003.16 Draft 2, November 1991 c Language Bindings - Part 1: binding for 9945-1. Describes the 'c' binding to the Language Independent Specification of P1003.1 Status: IEEE ballot in 2Q92. ISO CD registration 3Q92 ** 1003.17 Draft 2.0, August 1991 Name Space & Directory Services. API for X.500-compatible facilities. Status: IEEE ballot in 2Q92. 1003.18 Draft 5, September 1991 The Posix Platform Environment Profile (PEP), formerly TIMS. Status: IEEE ballot in 1Q92 1201.1 Windows Toolkit API 1201.2 Driveability. Addresses the 'look and feel' of WIMP interfaces and other factors of Human Computer Interaction (HCI). Status: IEEE ballot in 2Q92 1201.xx X Lib API. A library interface for the X Windows system. ** 1224 Draft 4, October 1991 ASN.1 Object Management API. Status: IEEE ballot in 1Q92. 1224.1 Draft 2, September 1991 (odd pages only!) X.400 Based Electronic Messaging API Status: IEEE ballot in 2Q92. ** 1238 Draft 1, September 1991 Common OSI Support Functions API. Status: IEEE mock ballot in 4Q92. 1238.1 FTAM API. Status: IEEE ballot in 4Q93. The groups marked '**' above are those doing work in network-related areas, ie those in which the JNT project is directly interested, and are dealt with in more detail below. 2.1 IEEE Group Status 1003.8 Transparent File Access. Covers interfaces to NFS- and RFS-type features. Chair: Jason Zions, Hewlett Packard. Vice-Chair: Peter Dadson, British Telecom. The November IEEE mailing included P1003.8 Draft 5, as passed to ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG15 at its meeting in Stockholm, November 4th to 8th, for review and comment. The 1003.8 group was due for review by PMC in October, but this was postponed until January, when the Chair, Jason Zions, reported that PMC had recommended that it should receive continued sponsorship. The group has submitted three new PARs: . to remove test assertions from the current standard . to generate a separate standard containing the 1003.8 test assertions as a revision of 1003.3.1 . to TFAise the 1003.2 standard (resulting probably in 1003.2.8). The October meeting spent some time reviewing the concept and implications of _PC_FIFO_REMOTE: in a network environment an application should be able to know whether an object pointed to by a FIFO special file is a local or a remote object - ie can it be used among processes on different systems or only among processes on the same system. The output from the meeting is intended to go to IEEE ballot in February 1992, and the December IEEE mailing included only Annex G (Test Methods) of the 1003.8 Draft 5 standard, which the group had brought into line with 1003.3.1 Draft 13; the current and more stable version of the Test Methods base standard. The lack of an Introduction to the draft has been the main reason why it hasn't gone to ballot already; there have also been coordination problems with other US standards bodies. At the January DS Steering Committee Ron Elliot from the 1003.6 (Security) group pointed out some security problems introduced by the .8 work: Jason responded with some TFA restrictions imposed by the .6 work. This issue was seen to have some complex interdependencies which need to be resolved, and as a result approval was given by SEC to establish a Distributed Services Study Group, (DSSG) which is to consider the problem of security issues within the DS standards subset. The group has a preset lifetime of three meetings and is charged with the task of developing models to support DS security, and to determine what work is appropriate to TCOS. The result may be a new (set of) DS-related security PARs for the Posix groups. The group's agenda for the January meeting was to complete work on the Test Assertions and to write an introduction to their Draft. The group will spend any remaining time in TFAising 1003.2, assuming that the PAR is approved. With respect to the LI work, the intention is for 1003.8 to split its draft between revisions to the 1003.1 LIS and the .16 'c' binding. The problem at the moment is the relative instability of the current drafts of those documents. I have accepted (as the BSI's UK IST/5/-/15 Head of Delegation) an invitation to join the IEEE Ballot group for the P1003.8 [Transparent File Access] draft standard. If anyone reading this report is interested in formally reviewing the P1003.8 Draft standard would you please contact me via any of the addresses on page 1 of this report. The group expects to be ready to issue its Draft for IEEE ballot in the first week of February. NB: The P1003.8 Draft standard is written as a set of editorial changes to the ISO 9945-1:1990 Standard, which must be read side-by-side with the 1003.8 draft for the latter to make sense! Ballot instructions for P1003.8 will require that balloters have copies of P1003.1:1990 plus a copy of P1003.3.1 Draft 12.8, dated October 1991, as these were the documents that .8 was working to for its Draft 5. 1003.11 Transaction Processing AEP. Chair: Elliot Brebner, Unisys (retired) The IEEE December mailing included Draft 5 of the TP AEP standard, together with a PAR proposing that an IEEE formatted draft of X/Open's XA Interface specification be ballotted as an IEEE 'Trial Use' standard. The pre- ordained life of two years of a Trial Use standard means that vendors gain experience in implementing and interfacing to a relatively new service in the knowledge that the feedback they provide to the IEEE will result in a timely revision and correction to any flaws in the specification. The XA specification determines the mechanism by which a Transaction Manager (TM) interacts with one or more Resource Managers (RMs). Elliot Brebner has now resigned as chair of the 1003.11 group, which is now trawling for a replacement. The lack of volunteers is another indication of the effect of the recession in the USA and elsewhere, meanwhile Elliot is continuing as acting Chair. 1003.12 Protocol Independent Interfaces. Describes Application Program Interfaces (APIs) for networking protocol stacks such as OSI and TCP/IP. Chair: Les Wibberley, CAS. This group has new attendees and new requirements almost every session. It plans to limit the scope of new work by defining an optional extension to .12 to provide the additional real-time, multicast, presumptive timeouts, priorities, timestamps, etc. that have been reqested. The group will nominate its next draft as 1.0, and this will be substantially complete: SNI has been largely static for the last few meetings. The scheduled ballot date has slipped to 2Q93. The IEEE November mailing offered some thoughts on how to handle the problems dropped on the group by P1003.4 (Real Time) when it virtually washed its hands of IPC issues, plus the requirements of P1003.11 (Transaction Processing) for IPC services - which had contributed to the many ballot objections which 1003.4 had received on its original IPC specification. 1003.4 and .11 could not agree on a common set of IPC requirements and came to .12 with separate shopping lists. 1003.12's problems are compounded by the fact that it is basing its standard on the two forms of existing practice - BSD sockets and XTI. The group's first pass at a solution was to see how readily the two sets of requirements mapped on to sockets and XTI. 1003.12 listed twenty-three requirements of either or both the .4 and .11 groups. Of these nine were not supported by the emerging .12 standard, some because the group felt that the requirement was not sufficiently well defined. Most of the others could be supported by the introduction of additional options on certain calls, or by use of the ancilliary buffer. None were felt to be unachievable. The October meeting in Parsippany continued the review of the RT and TP requirements: the consensus at the end of the meeting was that those needs which 1003.12 accepted to be part of their work will be added to DNI. The decision on whether to extend SNI will be made later. Any problems in mapping the new requirements to Sockets or XTI would have to be identified, but the goal is to support any new functionality in both. The group also recognised a demand for multicast support by their standard, and agreed to address the issue separately from the RT and TP requests as a means of partitioning the workload. The November mailing included an early attempt at a LIS specification for the PII standard, dated October 1991. Petr Janecek of X/Open told the October meeting of the group that X/Open would provide resources to generate the .12 test assertions from the LIS base, but that this funding would terminate at the end of 1992. P1003.12 had a new draft (D 0.3) at the January meeting, together with an updated DS section to go into 1003.0. The group spent some of the January meeting updating its glossary of terms. P1003.1 has tentatively accepted the responsibility for the 'select/poll' functions. Work on the RT/TP requests continues, and will hopefully be wrapped up at the January meeting. The group has still to complete TA and LI work, but due to attendance drop-off and funding constraints progress has slowed and the schedule has slipped back by six months. P1003.12 took presentations from a group of new members at its January meeting: . there is an interest in possibly using the 1003.12 SNI interface for the airline reservation system used globally by UA, BA, Alitalia and others. A major problem is that the hierarchy of the system is such that something over two million end points eventually link to one central node. Connection - oriented solutions cannot cope with this scenario, and the current implementation uses datagrams. Prioritisation of the exchanges is also vital, using a minimum of eight levels. . the US Navy was also represented, having an interest in the DNI specification. They are currently writing an Ada interface binding, which they will pass to .12 when it gets security clearance. . the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is in the middle of a multi-billion dollar upgrade to their IT systems and is committed to Posix. The IRS is specifically interested in a Posix Cobol binding: they have a huge investment in Cobol software and many of their programmers are having difficulty converting to 'c', plus it may not be worth converting some of their software suites. There is a problem progressing the DNI LIS: one member had been allocated the task between meetings but hadn't been able to put in the time, due to management constraints, and wasn't able to be at the January meeting either. The chair was charged with getting the background documentation from her so that other members of the group could progress the work - but there was no immediate volunteer for the job. As noted above the chair of the group, Les Wibberley, is having funding problems and cannot continue beyond the April meeting. A number of other long-standing members of 1003.12 said they were also faced with withdrawal of travel support. P1003.12 seems to be losing direction at the moment - it has been hit by the loss of crucial members and those remaining are struggling under the extra load of multicast, RT/TP requirements etc. Some new members are present, representing particular corporate interests (see above) but aren't yet sufficiently familiar with the group's work to contribute. 1003.17 Name Space & Directory Services. API for X.500-compatible facilities. Chair: Rob Spade, Motorola. Vice-Chair: Mark Hazzard. Only four members of the .17 group were able to attend the October meeting, due to funding problems. The group conducted a mock ballot on its draft in August and spent much of the October meeting reviewing the comments received and amending the draft accordingly. The group was largely satisfied that the comments could all be resolved. The .12 group (PII) met with .17 during the week, when 1003.12 requested a simpler interface to the .17 services. The discussion will be continued at the next meeting in January. Current plans are to go to formal ballot around April or May 1992. The January PMC review of the group demanded more members, especially for ballot resolution: the group's attendance is generally hovering at or below critical mass. PMC also recommended changes to the PAR, first to reflect what the group is actually doing, and second to split it along the lines of other groups for a separate LIS, 'c' binding etc. The group spent the January meeting working through the mock ballot responses, and aims to go to full ballot on April 7th with Draft 3.0, which will include Test Assertions, LIS and a 'c' binding. The group is loaded with a full set of liaison requirements. The group met with .12 again during the January meeting for a brainstorming session, and subsequently summarised .12's needs in order to work towards providing them. The chair (Rob Spade) couldn't attend the January meeting, and probably won't be able to resume attending in the future. Mark Hazzard has got tentative approval from his employers to take on the task - chairs are assigned by SEC. 1201.1 Windows Toolkit API Chair: Sunil Mehta, Unisys. 1201.2 Driveability. Addresses the 'look and feel' of WIMP interfaces and other factors of Human Computer Interaction (HCI). Chair: Lin Brown, Sun Microsystems 1201.xx X Lib API. The IEEE December mailing contained the minutes of the July (Santa Clara) meeting of 1201.1, where the group spent much of its time naming the items that make up a GUI, together with details of the 1201.2 group's work in October. Both the 1201.1 and 1201.2 groups were reviewed by PMC at the October meeting. 1201.1 presented its revised PAR, reflecting its new approach which is to allow programmers to write to APIs for different toolkits. Originally termed a 'layered API' this approach is now nominated a 'uniform API'. PMC approved both the PAR and the continuance of the 1201.1 group, with a review of progress in July 1992. PMC approved the continuance of 1201.2 with little discussion. The original reason for the PMC reviews of the 1201 groups was, as outlined in a previous report covering the IEEE meeting in Santa Clara in July, because the CS SEC had refused to sponsor PARs to standardise Motif and OpenLook. The SEC's parent committee, the Standards Advisory Board (SAB), then asked for reasons why these were rejected together with an analysis of why the two could not be harmonised. The response was that harmonisation is technically feasible, at either or both the API or 'look and feel' level. SAB is likely to suggest that this should be done. The 1201.2 group spent much of the October meeting reviewing its Draft, which is intended to go to mock ballot in Summer 1992. At the SEC Plenary during the January meeting the GUI wars were reopened by a request from the SAB of the IEEE, which had received a direct appeal by proponents of the two presentation styles. SAB recommended changes to the two PARs, and had offered them to two other IEEE groups, who politely refused them, and then passed them back to TCOS. SEC approved a motion to accept the modified PARs and to consider how best to progress them. 1224 Object Management API. 1224.1 X.400 Gateway API. Chair: Steve Trus, NIST. P1224 (OM API) Draft 4 was mailed to the Ballot group in late December: the IEEE ballot on this document closes on January 31st 1992. If anyone reading this report has an interest in reading and commenting on this 1224 draft please contact me now for a copy, so that your comments can be relayed to the IEEE by the close of ballot. The IEEE November mailing contained Draft 2 of the X.400 Gateway standard - or in fact only half of it, due to a copying problem which skipped alternate pages. The group's 1224.1 document will go to ballot between April 15th and May 15th. The January meeting was spent developing Test Assertions for both documents, and those for the OM document will be included in its revised form for recirculation. The next meeting will be largely devoted to resolving ballot comments. The group met jointly with 1003.17 and worked on areas of common interest, eg how does 1224 make use of .17 services. 1238 Common OSI Support Functions API. 1238.1 FTAM API. Chair: Paul Cheshire, Sema Group UK. The October meeting of 1238 was well attended, and spent its time reviewing Draft 1 of the OSI API standard. The group had about eight attendees at the January meeting, where they spent some of their time looking at LI Test Assertions - the first group to do so. The second draft was to be in the December mailing, but missed. This has had a knock-on effect on the schedule and the mock ballot has slipped four- to five- weeks. It was hoped that members of X/Open's XAP team would attend but travel restrictions have prevented it. If LI-based Test Assertions prove too intractible 1238 will fall back to writing c-based assertions. Paul Cheshire (as with Les Wibberley) is having problems getting future travel funding for Posix meetings. If all other approaches fail replacement Chairs must be found for these groups. The group spent some of the January meeting working through P1238 Draft 2, essentially re-working their terminology and making it self-consistent. The motivation for this is the confusion caused by the original slightly erratic use of ISO terminology. The next meeting will run parallel sessions writing 'c', Cobol and Ada thin bindings. Draft 3 of the 1238 standard will be in the second mailing of 1992, with a mock ballot planned for March. Ballot dates: 1238 4Q92 (October provisionally) 1238.1 4Q93 2.2 Status of the work ISO Overview The Posix schedule for 1992 and 1993 is daunting. 2.2.1. The Current Work Situation: The first part of the Posix set of standards, 9945-1, (The System Kernel API: ['c' language binding]) achieved IS status in 1990. It is currently undergoing revision within the IEEE and this work will be brought to ISO in due time. CD 9945-2 (Posix Shell and Utilities) as SC22 N1063 is currently undergoing an ISO DIS vote, closing on 14th February. This draft is 1000 pages long. ISO is committed (as is the IEEE) to providing a Language Independent Specification (LIS) of the Posix standard as soon as practicable. At the November meeting of ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG15 the US delegation presented WG15 with a LIS version of 9945-1 together with a 'c' binding to it, (commonly known as a 'thin' binding), for review and comment by WG15. The US member body has asked WG15 to consider how best to introduce the conversion of the 9945-1 standard to LIS form, and to present proposals at the May 1992 meeting of WG15. In September 1991 JTC1 agreed to accept a set of five NPs covering 'new' work within the Posix work item; these were: . N1374 - Addendum to 9945-1 for Real Time and Threads (P1003.4 and P1003.4a) . N1375 - Addendum to 9945-1 for Transparent File Access (P1003.8) . N1376 - Addendum to 9945-1 for Protocol Independent Interfaces (P1003.12) . N1377 - Addendum to 9945-1 for Directory Services (P1003.17) . N1378 - Addendum to 9945-2 for Shell User Portability Extension (P1003.2a) The draft corresponding to N1374 was circulated to WG15 in September 1990 for review and comment as Draft 9. This has since been superceded and is now at Draft 11 within the IEEE development group, following a number of negative comments resulting from the recent IEEE mock ballot. The TFA draft corresponding to N1375 was made available to WG15 at the November meeting, and was the then current IEEE Draft 5, however, it was revealed at the IEEE January meeting that the 1003.8 Draft 5 as sent to and distributed by ISO WG15 is NOT the same Draft 5 that the group is now working on. The group has distributed (in the December IEEE mailing) revised Test Assertions, contents and index sections, to replace those in the Draft, but without updating the draft number. The group decided that any further changes to the document should be reflected in a revised Draft number, to avoid further confusion. I said that I was unhappy that ISO was already faced with an undetectably different document. Any comment would be devalued, and would be more difficult for the .8 group to resolve. It was originally hoped that the IEEE would pass 1003.12 (PII) to WG15 for review and comment early in 1992, but for reasons detailed in the IEEE summary above progress on the draft has been delayed by six months or more, so WG15 will not receive this draft for some time yet. A draft corresponding to N1377 is likely to be forwarded to WG15 soon: the IEEE P1003.17 group has completed a mock ballot within the IEEE and is currently resolving the comments. ISO/IEC has circulated JTC1/SC22 N967, corresponding to the IEEE P1003.2a draft 6 dated March 1991, for review and comment as the basis for the N1378 work item. 2.2.2. Committed and Projected Work: A further set of seven Posix NP proposals are undergoing the JTC1 ballot process now; they are: . N1672 - A new IS (9945-3?) for Measuring Conformance to Posix (IEEE Std 1003.3-1990) . N1673 - A new TR, providing a guide to Posix Open Systems Environments (P1003.0). . N1674 - Addendum to 9945-1 for a System API Addendum (P1003.1a). . N1675 - Addendum to 9945-1 for Real Time (P1003.4b). . N1676 - Addendum to 9945-2 for Shell and Utility extensions (P1003.2b). . N1677 - Addendum to 9945-1 for System Security (P1003.6). . N1678 - Addendum to 9945-2 for Shell & Utility Security extensions (P1003.6). IEEE Std 1003.3-1990 has just been circulated to WG15 for review and comment, corresponding to the proposed work item described in N1672. The IEEE draft corresponding to the NP proposed in N1673 will be made available for ISO SC22 review and comment in 2Q92, as will the draft of P1003.1a, corresponding to N1674. ISO CD registration of a draft of P1003.6, corresponding to the NPs proposed in N1677 and N1678, is expected as soon as the NP is approved. The document is currently in the IEEE ballot resolution process. A Language Bindings work item (SC22.21.04) was approved when the original Posix work item was established. The schedule for this was established to be as follows, but may have slipped a little over the course of the project so far. The crucial element in the timetable is the development of the Language Independent Specification (LIS) for Posix, a draft of which was passed to WG15 in November - until this exists 'real' language mappings to Posix have nothing to map to. The current draft of the LIS is known to be immature, and it is not expected to be ready for ISO SC22 review and comment until 2Q92. 22.21.04.01 Language Bindings: Posix Language Bindings - C Language. Status: ISO WD expected 4Q92. 22.21.04.02 Addendum to 9945-4: Posix Language Bindings - Ada Language. Status: ISO WD expected 2Q94. 22.21.04.03 Addendum to 9945-4: Posix Language Bindings - Fortran Language. Status: ISO WD expected 4Q94. 2.2.3. Summary of WG15 Work Schedule: In summary, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG15 is currently considering seven draft standards at various stages between working document, CD and imminent DIS. It expects to receive a further nine separate and distinct drafts covering new areas of the Posix work item in the current year. Within the IEEE work is progressing on a raft of further parts to the Posix standard. The US delegation to WG15 estimates that this will result in another fifteen drafts (possibly requiring appropriate NPs) being submitted to WG15 in 1993. This constitutes a massively increased workload. As detailed above, a number of the drafts about to be passed to ISO WG15 are from the IEEE networking sub-groups. 3. Future Meetings 13-17 January IEEE Posix groups Irvine, Ca, USA 28 February IST/5/-/15 BSI, London 6-10 April IEEE Posix groups Dallas, Tx, USA 4-8 May ISO JTC-1/SC22/WG15 Hamilton, New Zealand 29 May IST/5/-/15 BSI, London 13-17 July IEEE Posix groups Chicago, Il, USA 11 September IST/5/-/15 BSI, London *either 12-16 October ISO JTC-1/SC22/WG15 Europe * 19-23 October IEEE Posix groups Utrecht, Holland *or 26-30 October ISO JTC-1/SC22/WG15 Europe * 27 November IST/5/-/15 BSI, London 1993: 11-15 January IEEE Posix groups New Orleans, La, USA 19-23 April IEEE Posix groups Boston, Ma, USA Dave Cannon 29-Jan-1992 Annex 1: Abbreviations Used in these Reports A T & T American Telephone and Telegraph ABI Application Binary Interface ACSE Association Control Service Element. AEP Application Environment Profile ANSI American National Standards Institute AP Application Process or Application Platform API Application Program Interface APSE Ada Programming Support Environment APSM Application Platform Service Module ASE Application Service Element ASO Application Service Object BSD Berkeley Software Distribution BSI British Standards Institute CAE Common Applications Environment CAIS Common APSE Interface Set CCITT Comite Consultatif International de Telegrafie et Telephonie CD ISO Committee Document (precedes the DIS stage) CEN Comite Europeen de Normalisation CENELEC Comite Europeen de Normalisation Electrotechnique CPI-C Common Programming Interface - Communications CS Computer Society of the IEEE CSRG Berkeley's Computer Systems Research Group DIS ISO Draft International Standard DNI Detailed Networking Interface DP ISO Draft Proposal. Now a CD. DRI Data Representation Interface DRS Data Representation Services. DS Distributed Services DSSC IEEE Posix Distributed Services Steering Committee DSSG IEEE Posix Distributed Services Study Group DTP ISO/IEC DIS 10026: Distributed Transaction Processing DWI ISO Division of Work Item DoD US Department of Defense ECMA European Computer Manufacturers Association EEI External Environment Interface FIPS Federal Information Processing Standard FTAM File Transfer, Access & Manipulation protocol GUI Graphical User Interface HCI Human Computer Interaction IDL Interface Definition Language IEC International Electrotechnical Commission IEEE US Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers IPC Inter Process Communication IRS The US Internal Revenue Service IS International Standard ISO International Standards Organisation JTC1 Joint Technical Committee 1 LIB Posix Language Independent Binding LIS Posix Language Independent Specification Mach An OS kernel developed by Carnegie Mellon MMS Manufacturing Message Specification NBS Now NIST NFS Network File System NIST US National Institute of Standards & Technology NP ISO New Proposal NWI ISO New Work Item. Now an NP. ODP Open Distributed Processing OLTP On-Line Transaction Processing ONI OSI Process to Process Network Interface OS Operating System OSE Open Systems Environment OSF The Open Software Foundation OSI Open Systems Interconnection P1003 The Posix standardisation group of the IEEE P2P PTP PAR IEEE Project Authorisation Request PCTE Portable Common Tools Environment PDAM ISO Proposed Draft AddenduM document PEP Platform Environment Profile PII P1003.12: Protocol Independent Interface group Posix Portable Operating System for Computer Environments PMC IEEE Posix Project Management Committee (PAR police) PSC Posix Profiles Steering Committee (est. April 1991) PTP IEEE Posix Process to Process group PWB Programmer's Workbench System RFS Remote File System RFT OSF's Request For Technology process RPC Remote Procedure Call SAB IEEE Standards Advisory Board SC22 Languages Sub-Committee of ISO/IEC JTC1 SCCT IEEE Posix Steering Committee on Conformance Testing SCO Santa Cruz Operation SEC IEEE TCOS Sponsor Executive Committee SICC IEEE Posix Systems Interface Coordination Committee SIG Special Interest Group SII Systems Integration Interface SNI Simplified Networking Interface SPI Systems Program Interface SVID A T & T's System V Interface Definition TA Posix Test Assertions TAG US Technical Advisory Group (on IS development) TCOS IEEE Technical Committee on Operating Systems TIMS Traditional Interactive Multi-user System. (PEP) TLI Transport Layer Interface TM Transaction Manager TP Transaction Processing TPI Transaction Processing Interface TPn OSI Transport Protocol (TP0, TP4, etc). UI Unix International UIMS User Interface Management System USO A T & T's Unix Software Operation VSX X/Open System Verification Suite WG15 The Posix Working Group of ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22 X/Net X/Open Networking group XA X/Open Distributed Transaction Processing Spec! XAP X/Open ACSE/Presentation API XDS X/Open Directory Services Specification XOM X/Open Object Management Specification XPG X/Open Portability Guide XPG4 Fourth revision of the XPG XTI X/Open Transport Interface XTP X/Open Transaction Processing model XVT X/Open Extensible Virtual Toolkit API Annex 2: Report of the ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG15 (Posix) Meeting, Stockholm, Sweden, November 1991. Meeting Report 0. Administrative Concerns: The Plenary ran from 5-November to 8-November-1991, and was preceded on the 4-November by parallel meetings of the Security, Conformance and Internationalisation rapporteur groups. Twenty-nine delegates from Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Holland, Japan, Sweden, the USA and the UK attended all or part of the Plenary. 1. Agenda: The agenda placed thirty-two action items and some sixty documents before the meeting for review or consideration. As at previous WG15 meetings, the Plenary divided itself into three sub-groups for one full day in order to handle the work load. The sub-groups were charged with sublimating their input into one or more of: . Disposition of comments (on drafts, NPs etc) . Resolutions for consideration by Plenary . Actions . Unresolved issues for consideration by Plenary . Report to Plenary and minutes for distribution. This level of activity led to a resolution to extend the Plenary into time reserved for the Rapporteur Groups at the beginning of the week for future meetings. The Plenary produced a further twenty three resolutions, many related to requested liaisons with SGFS, SC22/WG13 (Modula-2), the SC22 ad-hoc group on interpretations and other external groups, together with forty two action items. 2. IEEE TCOS Report: The US Head of Delegation reported that "the floodgates were about to open from the IEEE Posix working groups to ISO": drafts of P1003.2a (User Portability Extension) and P1003.6 (Security) are ready now to begin the ISO process, while P1003.4 (Real Time Extensions), P1003.8 (Transparent File Access) and the Language Independent Specification to P1003.1, together with the corresponding 'thin' c binding, are available now for review and comment. In total ten drafts will become available in the next year, and a further fifteen the next. This represents a massive volume of paperwork to be processed by WG15, SC22 and the ISO member bodies. 3. Liaisons: WG15 spent some time considering the new work area being addressed by the SGFS group. WG15 had requested a joint meeting of its Rapporteur Group on Profile Coordination Activities (RGCPA) with SGFS, and this resulted in the meeting of the SGFS Authorised Sub-Group, 30-Oct to 1-Nov. At least five members of WG15 attended the SGFS Authorised Sub-Group meeting. The RGCPA will meet in January to consider the SGFS papers and respond. WG15 resolved to pass the Posix profile work to SGFS as a guide to adjustments needed in a revised TR 10000. The US was actioned to develop an outline Posix taxonomy for input to SGFS, together with comments on the differences between the SGFS profile work and the Posix Platform Environment Profile (PEP). The WG15 Rapporteur Group on Conformance Testing (RGCT) has reservations that the SGFS timetable is not sufficiently aggressive to allow the emergence of Profile work for some considerable time. WG15 welcomes the TR 10000 revision and recognises that it will impact Posix work: the longer the SGFS work takes the larger is the number of affected Posix standards. The WG15 Rapporteur Group on InternationalisatioN (RIN) believes that National Profiles are ill-conceived in SGFS. RIN will be offering formal input to the revision of TR 10000 either by Technical Report or by other less formal means. Amongst other issues considered by WG15 was the JTC1 N1532 paper proposing an NP for a Generic Operating System Interface (GOSI), which would also involve future liaison commitments: WG15 heard that Posix could be a platform under GOSI. SC22 has been given the task of responding to the JTC1 ballot comments on N1532, and WG15 drafted a resolution offering to draft the ballot responses. 4. ISO 10646: Resolution AY from the SC22 Plenary in Vienna, in September 1991 was considered by WG15's RIN. SC22 Resolution AY warns that any programming language or Operating System which relies on its strings being terminated by a NUL octet (eg c and Posix) cannot make use of character encoding standards such as 10646 which use embedded NUL octets. RIN agreed that the acceptance of DIS 10646 in its current form would introduce significant problems for implementations of the ISO/IEC 9945-1:1990 standard, including severe limitations on backwards compatibility issues. WG15 resolved therefore that: 'ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG15 Member Bodies are requested to take these reasons into account in establishing a ballot response to ISO/IEC DIS 10646'. 5. Future Meetings and Travel Funding Support: The meeting closed at 15:15 on Friday, 8-November-1991. The next meeting is scheduled to take place at the University of Waikato, New Zealand, 4th to the 8th of May, 1992. Confirmation of intention to attend this meeting is required by the University of Waikato administration by the 4th of January, 1992, and therefore potential delegates will need to confirm any travel funding support by the end of December 1991. 6. UK delegation: David Cannon (UK BSI IST/5/-/15 Convenor, HoD) (University of Exeter) Colin O'Driscoll (Conformance Rapporteur) (NCC) Dominic Dunlop (RIN Rapporteur) (University of Oxford) Don Folland (RGCPA Rapporteur) (CCTA) Martin Kirk (IEEE 1003.7 Chair) (X/Open UK Ltd) Kevin Murphy (Security Rapporteur) (BT Security) Dave Cannon 10-November-1991 Annex 3: ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22 Posix Schedule of Work: (This information is taken from ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22 N1072) 22.21.01.01 Base Standard: Portable Operating System Interface for Computer Environments - Posix. Status: ISO IS 9945-1:1990 22.21.01.02 Addendum to 9945-1: Real Time Extensions. Status: ISO CD 4Q91. 22.21.01.03.01 Addendum to 9945-1: Distribution Services - Transparent File Access. Status: ISO WD 4Q91. 22.21.01.03.02 Addendum to 9945-1: Distribution Services - Remote Procedure Call. Status: This work item has been discontinued. 22.21.01.03.03 Addendum to 9945-1: Distribution Services - Protocol Independent Interface. Status: ISO WD expected 3Q92. 22.21.01.03.04 Addendum to 9945-1: Distribution Services - Name Space & Directory Services. Status: ISO WD expected 2Q92. 22.21.02.01 Shell Standard: Posix Shell & Utility Applications for Computer Environments. Status: ISO CD 4Q91. 22.21.02.02 Addendum to 9945-2: User Portability Extensions. Status: ISO WD 4Q91. 22.21.03.01 Administration Standard: Posix System Administration. Status: ISO WD expected 4Q92. 22.21.03.02 Addendum to 9945-3: Posix System Administration - Batch Services. Status: This work item has been discontinued. 22.21.04.01 Language Bindings: Posix Language Bindings - C Language. Status: ISO WD expected 4Q92. 22.21.04.02 Addendum to 9945-4: Posix Language Bindings - Ada Language. Status: ISO WD expected 2Q94. 22.21.04.03 Addendum to 9945-4: Posix Language Bindings - Fortran Language. Status: ISO WD expected 4Q94.