P315r BSI IST/5/-/15 (POSIX) POSIX Panel Activity Report 6 March 1996 IST/5/-/15 has met once, on the 23-February, since the last IST/5 meeting on the 12-December. WG15's last meeting was in October 1995. The February meeting of IST/5/-/15 was devoted largely to an excellent presentation by X/Open of its developing work on Application Conformance, under the title of the Open Software Register. 1. ISO Business, Recommended Votes, etc: . SC22 N1986: Concurrent CD Registration and CD Ballot for CD 15068-3. POSIX System Administration - Part 3: User and Group Account Management. The panel has an active member of the IEEE group producing the document. The panel recommended a YES vote, with no comments. WG15 requested its members to consider the impact of SC22 N1961, which contains the full text of CEN/TC304 PT01: User Requirements in Character Set Technology. IST/5/-/15 has spent some time considering the document, and intends to pass the following comments to WG15 at its next meeting in May: "L/11113b Message interface with localisers: Providing input and output in natural languages is a major task in the localisation process. In many cases the maker of the application is not able to provide a localised product for all languages of the world, and a standard for specifying messages available to national localisers or users would make localisation available in more cultures. Tools for generating and maintaining message catalogues and APIs to interface the message catalogues are also needed." The table on P45 of SC22 N1961 (PT01) wrongly refers to this item as L/11113a. The Panel feels that this is a useful proposal, and has no reason to think that TC304's suggestion to proceed with the work in WG20 was misconceived. The Panel believes that X/Open is working on similar functionality. "L/1312 Update POSIX to cover more cultural conventions: The formal specification techniques for Locales in POSIX are to be extended to cover more classes of cultural conventions than is possible in the current version. This extension of the POSIX model is very slowly underway in WG20 and WG15." It is not clear to the Panel exactly what is proposed here. Over time a wide variety of changes have been suggested for inclusion in 1003.2b. Detailed proposals are requested of CEN/TC304 before any constructive comment can be made on the technical merit of this requirement. TC304 suggests that internationalisation expertise is limited in the IEEE and that therefore the proposed work should be carried out in WG15/RIN: it is not apparent to the Panel that extensive internationalisation manpower is available in or to that group either. "L/132 Formal Specification Techniques for cultural data (in addition to POSIX): Develop additional formal specifiaction techniques for cultural data. To be done in co-operation with SC21. Recently approved WI by SC22, CD expected in 1996." TC304 indicates that this is WG20's 14652 project. SC22 N1961 mentions only X/Open as a source of research activity or standardisation. TC304 goes on to suggest that WG15 should liaise strongly with WG20 to ensure POSIX alignment, and the Panel would endorse this proposal. "L/2111b Guidelines on national specifications of cultural conventions: An NP from WG15 is out for ballot in JTC1, it has passed SC22 ballot recently. The work has been underway for two years, but have not had a lot of progress. European input would be beneficial to the project. Develop Euopean guidelines that can serve as input to the international work item." TC304 indicates that this item would require the scope of the proposed NP to be enhanced to encompass all of the CEN requirement - with all that that entails. The Panel has no clear picture of what extensions are involved, and requests that CEN/TC304 provide a detailed description of the technical aspects of the proposal. TC304 goes on to propose that the work be undertaken in WG15/RIN; it is not clear that the existing NP will be processed in WG15/RIN, (if approved) due to manpower limitations, therefore the Panel is less sure that an extended work item can be completed by that body. "L/212 International cultural registry: Other ISO work is dependent on the existence of an international registry rather than a European one, making this a high priority item. The work on this has been stalled in SC22 and WG20, so the best way to proceed may be ... to fast-track ... the European cultural register." The Panel has no objection to this proposal. "L/31 Update POSIX to include locale default rules: POSIX locales are not always available for any language and culture, and a user then has a need for specifying another locale which is acceptable, for example which other language that messages are acceptable in, if the application does not have messages in the native language. This should be multi- level fallback rules, so that the user can specify a set of preferences. The internationalisation model and APIs need to be modified to accommodate this need. New, but small item for WG15." Again, the Panel has an unclear picture of what is required here, and requests that CEN/TC304 provide a detailed technical description of the proposal. However, assuming that the proposal was intended to dovetail into L/11113b rather than duplicate any of that effort, the Panel feels that the idea is a useful one. The proposal in TC304 to pursue the work in WG15/IEEE seemed appropriate. "C/3131 Guide on conversion between UCS coding forms: A utility 'iconv' is defined in POSIX.2b, and an associated API should be defined, of example as part of WG20 internationalisation/UCS APIs. A guide will be developed for implementors of conversion functions in operating systems (such as POSIX iconv). This guide could be input to the WG20 work on APIs for internationalisation." TC304 proposes that WG20 has planned work on APIs on coded character sets, and that the work should be progressed there. The Panel has no objection to this, but notes that while the C standard now has multibyte character support, there is only one known implementation. The Panel is concerned that, like some previous Standards work, effort could be poured into this while the industry takes a different course. "C/332 Support for locale registry in POSIX operating systems: This work item will add support for linking to the International registry of Locales in ISO/IEC 9945. Support for the locales themselves is already in C, C++ and POSIX, but work to include support for the registry is not begun." This suggests to the Panel that the proposal might be intended to permit the remote access of a locale registry over a network, for example. Again the technical detail is missing, and CEN/TC304 is requested to provide this in order that a meaningful response be possible. TC304 suggests that the work be included in 1003.2b; if this has any hope of happening a detailed proposal is required very soon, since the draft is likely to be presented for CD registration shortly. Overall, the Panel feels that many of the above ideas have merit: it is not clear however that there is the manpower available to produce the results - particularly in the timescales suggested, which are all wildly optimistic. Internationalisation expertise is exceptionally sparse; expected formal voting dates on all eight of the above items range from 1996 to 1998. SC22 N1961 contains over eighty items in total, some seventy of which are new items and all are targeted to be ready for formal vote before 1999. TC304 ends by suggesting: "The most urgent work is L/2111b, L/212 and C/332. Based on my experience with work in this area, I would advise that the limited personal resources be gathered in one place, so that long liaison dialogues could be avoided. As the work is international in nature, and a number of relevant persons are not active in regional activities such as CEN or IEEE, my recommendation would be to do the work either in WG15 or WG20." Certainly the existing liaison structure is cumbersome, if not totally inadequate, for the degree of multi-committee interworking proposed by SC22 N1961, and the suggestion to concentrate manpower and effort in one place is a good one. If the proposals in SC22 N1961 are accepted, SC22 should be requested to endorse this recommendation and nominate the preferred WG. 2. Proposed Delegation for WG15, 20-24 May: The proposed UK delegation for the WG15 meeting in Copenhagen is expected to be: David Cannon (University of Exeter) Martin Kirk (X/Open) Nick Stoughton (Pert) Although the panel convener is ineligible for AITS funding, (except under the extreme conditions detailed in previous debates and papers), IST/5/-/15 expects one of the other two proposed attendees to claim support to attend the meeting. On the same theme, my employer has indicated that while it is willing to fund any shortfall in costs and expenses of the next three WG15 meetings (in Copenhagen, Munich and the UK - and the last only because it is in the UK), it is unable to do so beyond that meeting. JISC grants for the last four meetings have fallen progressively further behind both the estimates and the actual costs. Unless some other benefactor is found I reluctantly therefore have to give notice to IST/5 that a new IST/5/-/15 Panel convener should be found who is better placed to represent the Panel and the UK at meetings of WG15. 3. Future POSIX-Related Meetings: 1996: 14-19 April IEEE POSIX groups Jackson Hole, Wy 17 May IST/5/-/15 ** Meeting Cancelled ** 20-24 May ISO JTC-1/SC22/WG15 Denmark (target) 4 June IST/5 BSI, London 14-19 July IEEE POSIX groups Nashua, Nh 6 September IST/5/-/15 NFA 10 September IST/5 BSI, London 23-27 September ISO JTC1/SC22 Chiswick, UK (*) 20-25 October IEEE POSIX groups Munich, Germany 28-31 October ISO JTC-1/SC22/WG15 Munich, Germany 29 November IST/5/-/15 NFA 10 December IST/5 BSI, London (* - revised date) 1997: 12-17 January IEEE POSIX groups Phoenix, Az Spring ISO JTC-1/SC22/WG15 UK (target) ??-?? April IEEE POSIX groups New Orleans, La Fall ISO JTC-1/SC22/WG15 Ottawa, Canada (c/w IEEE) David Cannon 6-March-1996