Unapproved Meeting Minutes BSI IST/5/-/15 (Posix) Panel Date: 19-November-1993 Location: Hampden House, London Those Present: Dave Cannon (Chairman) University of Exeter Peter Owens CCTA Hugh Fisher NHS Rob Smith NHS Martin Kirk (Secretary) X/Open Andrew Josey USL/Novell Colin O'Driscoll NCC David Rogers Data Logic Dan Chacon BSI QA Neil Keskar CSC Computer Sciences David Brownbridge Praxis Papers before the meeting: P224 Disposition of Comments: 9945-2 (Shell & Utilities) HJ P225 Liaison Statement (OSE->OIW) re Application Profiles PO P226 IST/5/-/15 Activity report to IST/5, 8-Sep-93 DC P227 IST/5/-/15 Agenda, 19-Nov-1993 P228 IST/5/-/15 Minutes, 10-Sep-1993 P229 WG15 Actions required of UK WG15 P230 IST/5/-/15 Proposal on JTC1 N2612 (Conformance Methds) P231 WG15 Meeting report, Annapolis, 25-29 October DC P232 WG15 Resolutions, Annapolis, 25-29 October WG15 P233 IEEE PASC Posix group status report IEEE/WG15 P234 Request/Response for NO on NP JTC1/N2612 Panel/IST/-/10 N01 Ada binding to P1003.4a (Threads) Problems TB Authors: DC David Cannon HJ Hal Jesperson PO Peter Owens TB Ted Baker 0. Apologies Apologies received from Ross Allen and Derek Jones. 1. Adoption of Agenda: P227 Adopted as circulated. 2. Approval of Minutes: P228 Approved with the following modification: Ros Allen -> Ross Allen 3. Matters Arising, including Action items: P228 3Q93: Dave Ferbrache is willing to be the IST/5/-/15 rapporteur to RGSEC. (Chair to write requesting support from DF's employers) Chair has written. Last WG15 meeting determined that RGSec could do most of its work by e-mail, hence the above role will mainly be discharged at panel meetings. 3Q93: Chair has not yet been able to contact Greger Leijonhufvud about SC22 on ad-hoc character sets. Contact has still not been established. Greger is working in Canada at the present. He is still willing to serve as RIN rapporteur. 3Q93: Dave Cannon to follow up Rigorous Conformance in POSIX 1003.1 and WG15. Still open. Next IST5/-/15 meeting will discuss this issue in greater detail. (See below.) This caused some confusion at WG15. This has been explained and something may happen within P1003.1. Should be discussed at the next IEEE meeting. Reconfirmation/revision of .1 is due in 1995. .1 will be growing by accretion (.4, .8, etc) anyway during the next 2 years. 3Q93: Dave Cannon to send copy of ballot invitation for security additions to P1003.1 and .2 to David Ferbrache. Not required, David is already in contact with P1003.6. 3Q93: Dave Cannon to discuss problems [with P1003.0] with US Delegation before next WG15 meeting. Problem arose with the dropping of the word POSIX from (P)OSE in D16. This change has now been reversed. Problems arise from different views in the US and Europe on the desirability of delving into the detail of the applications platform. 3Q93: Colin O'Driscoll to talk to P2003.0 about UK proposal on Open Systems Assessment Methodology. Done. UK misgivings communicated to Lowell Johnson. IST/21 proposal was very OSI-centric, and didn't adequately address linkages with IEEE work. P230 and P234 address this issue. The panel expressed considerable disquiet at the fact that the process of establishing the UK position was flawed - the relevant document was circulated 2 weeks AFTER the IST/-/10 meeting at which the UK yes vote was approved, and the purpose of that special meeting was not made clear to all interested parties. Action: Chair to ask IST/5 about the procedure used in determining the UK position on JTC1/N2612. (Done: 7-Dec) [The SC21 Conformance Testing Methodology NP was raised at the September meeting of IST/5, briefly. It was passed over fairly rapidly and the minutes record only that the IST/5 Chair was to formulate an appropriate response, based on the discussion. I had forgotten this by the time of the September IST/5/-/15 meeting, at which members noted the problems with the proposal. Our window of opportunity, to advise the IST/5 Chair of our worries, was lost then, and the IST/5 Chair forgot that he was actioned to respond on behalf of IST/5. I apologise for my error, and Andrew Walker, IST/5 Chair, apologises for his omission...] 3Q93: Dave Cannon to pass document [P225] to Greger for comment. (Done) 3Q93: Colin O'Driscoll to pass on comments [on the SC21 Open Systems Assessment Methodology NP] to Dave Cannon re this proposal. (Done) 4. Progress of ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG15: . Consideration of ISO ballots: P224 . Actions: IST/5 will be discussing PCTE and 9945-1 periodic review on December 7th. . Status Report of SC22/WG15: (Annapolis, SC22 Paris) . Actions: P229, P231 . Resolutions: P232 (Provisional numbers as in P229); 9310-01 UK National Body to further scope the work required as defined in N347 (open action item 9305-01) Done. (Draft NP circulated at 19/1193 meeting). New draft expands scope section (in order to limit the scope) and identifies deliverable as a TR rather than an IS. 9310-07 SGFS Liaison: Forward document WG15/N297 (P1003.0 Draft 15), document WG15/N164 (P1003.18 Draft 3) to SGFS. (Resolution 209).(open action item 9210-48, 9305-19) Action: Chair to check progress with Andrew Walker. (Done: 20-Nov) 9310-12 Member Bodies: Review N375 to determine status and report back to next WG15 meeting. (open action item 9305-28) Mostly closed(!): Par.007 Member bodies to contribute national Profiles that they have developed to WG15 RIN and to WG20. - still open. Greger may talk to the Welsh. Rot.003 WG15 member bodies to review and comment on the taxonomy in the EWOS Technical Guide on Profiles for the OSE. (EWOS/TA/81/68, WG15 N165) - still open. CCTA interest? 9310-19 Member Bodies: Host for spring 1996 WG15 meeting is required. Volunteers are requested to supply an official invitation to the Convener. (open action item 9305-65) 9310-37: MBs, to identify participants in the 9945-1 and 9945-2 interpretations process. Representatives should be identified to the convenor via E-mail as soon as possible. Andrew Josey is the IEEE Interpretations VC. 9310-40: MBs, to review draft 8 of 2003.2 and comment to RGCT for discussion at the next meeting. CO'D will be looking at it. Ditto DC. 9310-47: WG15 Member Bodies, to comment to WG15 RIN draft position on 10646 impact on POSIX standards. Addresses problems arising from 10646 (eg embedded null bytes). RIN will discuss issues notified to it in May. Action: Chair to send copies of the relevant SC22 resolutions on ISO 10646 to CO'D for preparation of comment to WG15. (Done: 20-Nov) 9310-60: Member bodies, to provide comment on SC22/N1417 to RGCT by April 94. In hand, 9310-40. 9310-65: MBs, respond to convener by the 31 Jan 94 if a secretary can be provided to the next meeting in Tokyo. MK may volunteer Action: MK to notify chair by January 30 if applicable. [Re: whether MBs can offer a secretary to WG15, Tokyo] Other1: get someone who knows about extended character usage to review N417 point 7 with respect to damage limitation. (Electronic copy of N420 passed to MK for discussion by X/Open Shell & Utilities people...) Passed to MK for X/Open consideration, also to DC and CO'D. Other2: The problem of RIN, and a discussion of possible solutions, is required at the next meeting of WG15. A UK proposal may be desirable, and to avoid complications with procedure should be mailed out to reach all WG15 MBs in good time for the next meeting of WG15 in May. See later discussion. 5. Progress of IEEE PASC projects: . Consideration of IEEE PASC ballots: . Status Report of IEEE PASC projects: P233, N01 P1003.7 is being renumbered P1387. .7.1 -> 1387.4 .7.2 -> 1387.2 .7.3 -> 1387.3. .1, Printing is in ballot resolution. .2, software, expects to go to ballot in April 1994. P1003.0 is in recirculation ballot. Action: PO to introduce into the P1003.0 ballot process that MUMPS is now a standard and is now called M. P1003.6/22 had a low attendance, partly due to .6 being in ballot resolution. A portable audit format is being proposed, and it is expected that some DCE security work may be brought into the IEEE. P1003.15 is working on NQS and is moving towards defining a data stream encoding. DC introduced the ISO JTM standard to the group, as this may already meet their needs. P1003.8 is in ballot resolution. They believe they have reached 75% approval. Their target document, .1, has changed, which is causing them problems. P1003.12 conducted initial ballot review, ballot is still in progress. In general, PASC is suffering from falling attendance, and rising resource requirements. They are taking various steps to address this, including raising the meeting fees. N01 raises issues with the Ada binding to pthreads. There was discussion on the email (N01) originating from Ted Baker (Technical Editor of P1003.5) to the ACM and ISO SC22/WG9. The panel felt unable to offer comment on the technical content of the document, it being largely related to the problems of mapping Ada on to the Posix Real-Time and Threads drafts. It was not clear that a breakdown of the balloting process had occurred - a valid reason for rejecting ballot comments being that their acceptance would reduce concensus. Action: Chair to forward N01 and the appropriate part of the introduction of P1003.20 to IST/5/-/9 for their comments on whether the problems identified are surmountable. (Done: 7-Dec) [Subsequent email forwarded by Brian Meek indicates that Ted Baker has had positive response from P1003.4 group on the lack of responsiveness to his ballot comments - he no longer has a problem. Ada group (IST/5/-/9) has a copy of P1003.20; forwarding N01 (Ted Baker's comments) no longer appropriate] Action: Chair to copy the IEEE report in preparation for the JNT to IST/5/-/15. (Done: 28-Jan) 6. Rapporteur Groups: . Report of Security RG ( ?) RGSec: No report. . Report of Verification RG (CO'D) P230, P234 RGCT: RGCT minutes were distributed. Presentations on automated test suite development were made to RGCT. Action: DanC to pass the automated testing presentations to HF. . Report of Internationalisation RG (GL) RIN: The chair expressed some personal reservations at the way in which the RIN process is operating. He proposed that the UK submit a paper recommending that the WG15 rapporteur groups (all of them) be terminated, and their work be handled in WG15 plenary/breakout sessions. Concern was expressed that dissolving all the rapporteur groups might be too general a solution to a specific problem. Perhaps a better solution would be to enforce the existing procedures more rigorously. It was felt that the best way was to mandate UK WG15 attendees to take a very pro-active role in objecting to abuses of procedure, both in WG15 and RIN. . Report of Profile Coordination RG (PO) P225 RGCPA: No further issues needed to be raised. . Discussion of Merits/Demerits of WG15 Rapporteur Groups See above discussion regarding RIN. 7. Liaison with other Standards Committees and Panels: . IST/5 Report: (DC) P226 . IST/-/2 Liaison: (AW) . IST/5/-/14 Liaison: (DJ) . SGFS Liaison: (AW) No substantive issues remained to be discussed. 8. Application Conformance Testing: why and how? (DJ, HF) Deferred to the next meeting, at the request of HF and in the absence of DJ. 9. Any Other Business: Action: Chair to email the Extended characterset in small languages proposal (from Keld) to Martin Kirk, CO'D and DanC for forwarding to experts. (Done: 20-Nov) IST/5/-/15 wishes to thank Stephe Walli for his generous support of the continued well-being of the group. Dates for meetings, 1994: The following dates were agreed 25-February 27-May 26-August 25-November Action: Chair to arrange meeting rooms with Lyn Jenkins for meeting dates, 1994 (Done: 17-Jan)