P385
                            BSI IST/5/-/15 (POSIX)

                         POSIX Panel Activity Report
                                 6 September 1999

        1. Introduction

        IST/5/-/15 has not met since the last IST/5 meeting. The main
	status to report since the last meeting is the progress made
	by the Austin Group (see below).

        2. ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG15

	The last meeting was held on July 23rd in Montreal, which
	coincided with the IEEE PASC and Austin Group meetings.

	A significant item raised at the WG15 meeting was that there
	is a conflict between the C Language Revision which is in
	final ballot and the POSIX standards and locales. Proposed
	resolution 99-419 was drafted in an attempt to make sure that
	these incompatibilities do not exist in the final approved
	revision. There was discussion whether this should be dealt with
	as a ballot objection or a Defect Report. It was decided to pursue
	both courses of action in order to make sure the necessary
	corrections are made.

	An action was put on Member Bodies to raise this issue of the
	C Revision which introduces incompatibilities with the POSIX
	standard and locales to their SC22 and WG14 advisory bodies to
	request that they take the steps necessary to get the C standard
	corrected to maintain compatibility between the C and POSIX
	standards.  The UK convenor has raised this to the attention
	of the WG14 Panel.

	Other items at the meeting related to Austin Group progress. The
	main item of concern is document style. It appears that the
	initial direction for document layout taken by the Austin Group
	to produce a single document set including both the ISO POSIX
	requirements, and the Single UNIX Specification requirements,
	which is utilising man pages and various editorial conventions that
	aid end user readability may not be acceptable at the IEEE and
	ISO levels. This will ultimately lead to two versions of the
	document set being produced, one for use by the industry and the
	other for formal approval as the ISO specification. An action was
	assigned to member bodies to consider the matter. (It is probably
	worth noting that Draft 2 will be a better draft to consider,
	since a lot of the style/language issues are addressed in it).

      3. The Austin Group

      The Austin Group is a joint technical working group established
      to consider the matter of a common revision of ISO/IEC 9945-1,
      ISO/IEC 9945-2, IEEE Std 1003.1, IEEE Std 1003.2 and the
      appropriate parts of the Single UNIX Specification.

	ISO JTC1/SC22/WG15 is an active participant in the Austin group.
 	Within WG15, the work of the Austin Group is handled as a rapporteur
	group, and Nick Stoughton, IST/5/-/15 panel convenor, has been
	appointed Lead Rapporteur. Andrew Josey of the UK is the overall
	chair of the Austin Group. The latest meeting of the Austin Group
	was in Montreal on July 20-22 co-located with the IEEE PASC meeting
	and the ISO	WG15 meeting.

	The objective of this meeting was to review the draft one
	specifications. A three day plenary session was held, and over
	830 change requests were processed (at an average of 47 "aardvark"
	requests per hour).

	The next draft will be produced in October and will fold in
	the changes identified by the review of draft 1 and rework the
	style issues (use of imperative shall and quotes for characters
	etc). There will be no formal review period for draft two.

	Draft three is scheduled for February 29 2000, and based on the
	feedback from reviewers for draft 1 there will be an increased
	review period (8 weeks). At the present time draft three is
	anticipated to include XNS5v2, POSIX 1003.1a, 1003.2b, 1003.2d
	and other amendments completing by December 31st 1999.

	The next meeting will be in late December 1999 or  January
	2000. This will be a planning meeting to confirm contents for
	draft 3.

	The next formal review meeting will be in May 2000 to review
	change requests arising from draft 3. This meeting will be a five day
	meeting and be held in either Cupertino or Copenhagen.


      4. ISO Business, Recommended Votes, etc:

      See 2 above.

      5. Future POSIX-Related Meetings:

            1999:
                20-24 September ISO JTC1/SC22           Berlin, Germany
                October 24-29   IEEE Posix Groups       St Louis, USA
                6-10 December   Austin Group            ??
           2000:
	 	23-28 Jan	IEEE Posix Groups	San Diego, USA
                May     	Austin Group            Copenhagen/Cupertino
		July		IEEE Posix Groups	??
                October      	Austin Group            ??

        Andrew Josey (on behalf of the Panel Convenor)
        6-September-1999