🚀 go-pugleaf

The relationship is as follows:

1) FIPS 151 (not 151-1) referred to an unapproved draft of 1003.1.
   (Grrrr!)

2) FIPS 151-1 refers to 1003.1-1988.

3) FIPS 151-1 DOES NOT refer to, nor relate to in any way, 1003.1-1990
   or IS 9945-1.  (I'm presuming slightly on both titles; the official
   approvals havn't happened yet, but I don't see anything in the way
   of either.)

4) 1003.1-1990 and IS 9945-1 will be identical except for the cover pages
   and the fact that ISO will white out a few non-technical things like
   line numbers.  (I don't want to get into THAT issue, please.)

5) 1003.1-1990 is slightly different than -1988, but not enough so you'd
   notice much (unless you're a test suite writer where you notice
   EVERYTHING).  The major difference is tightness of langauge.

6) Roger Martin (of NIST) keeps asking me when -1990/9945-1 will be done.

I have no data about how much trouble you'd get in to politically; 
techincally, the hard data is there in terms of the changes.  (I
hope/expect that the -1990 version will have change bars, but don't bet
on them in the ISO version (personally, I'd buy the IEEE version)).

You will have to evaluate the changes for how much they impact your
situation, but you have a reasonably good chance of coming up with
the answer that it really doesn't matter to you very much.

There is one gotcha; there are a few little things that vendors will
have to touch for the -1990 version, and you may be restricting the
availablility of systems to insist on it for short-term delivery.
Over time I hope that there will be a 151-2, and that vendors will
provide conformant systems.


Donn Terry, Chair 1003.1
These opinions are my own, and do not necessarily reflect those of IEEE,
HP, P1003.1 or the guy reading this posting.