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This is the latest in a series of similar comp.std.unix articles.
Corrections and additions to this article are solicited.


Access information is given in this article for the following standards:
IEEE 1003.1 (operating system interface), 1003.2 (shell and utilities),
	1003.3 (testing and verification), 1003.4 (real time).
NBS FIPS.
/usr/group working groups on distributed file system, network interface,
	graphics/windows, database, internationalization,
	performance measurements, realtime, security, and super computing.
X3H3.6 (display committee)
X3J11 (C language)
/usr/group Standard
System V Interface Definition (SVID, or The Purple Book)
X/OPEN PORTABILITY GUIDE (The Green Book)
4.3BSD Manuals


UNIX is a Registered Trademark of AT&T.
POSIX and IEEE are trademarks of the Institute of Electrical
	and Electronic Engineers, Inc.
X/OPEN is a licensed trademark of the X/OPEN Group Members.


The IEEE P1003 Portable Operating System Interface for Computer
Environments Committee is sometimes known colloquially as the UNIX
Standards Committee.  They published the 1003.1 "POSIX" Trial Use
Standard in April 1986.  According to its Foreword:

	The purpose of this document is to define a standard
	operating system interface and environment based on the
	UNIX Operating System documentation to support application
	portability at the source level.  This is intended for
	systems implementors and applications software developers.

Published copies are available at $19.95, with bulk purchasing discounts
available.  Call the IEEE Computer Society in Los Angeles

		714-821-8380

and ask for Book #967.  Unfortunately, this only works for multiple copies.
But the following mail address works for single copies:

		IEEE Computer Society
		P.O. Box 80452
		Worldway Postal Center
		Los Angeles, Ca. 90080

Include a check for $19.95 + $4 for shipping and handling.  For UPS
shipping, add another $4.  Or contact:

		IEEE Service Center
		445 Hoes Ln.
		Piscataway, NJ 08854

and ask for "IEEE 1003.1 Trial Use Standard" - stock number SH10546.

The Trial Use Standard will be available for comments for a period
such as a year.  The current target for a Full Use Standard is Spring 1988.
The current draft, Draft 12, is being balloted on starting 15 November 1987.
It's too late to join the balloting group, but written objections or comments
are still solicited during the thirty days following that date from everyone
and will be fully considered.  The main difference is that only ballots from
the formal balloting group will count toward the numeric goals for returning
ballots and yes yotes.  The appropriate address is:

		Computer Society Secretariat
		IEEE Standards Office
		345 East 47th St.
		New York, NY 10017

The possible categories for voting are:  yes, perhaps with comments;
no, with objections, and perhaps with comments; and yes because of
lack of time or expertise (this last one makes no sense unless you
are in the official balloting quorum).  Text of comments and objections
should organized by section of Draft 12, with each major section
at the beginning of a new page.  Each remark should be marked as to
whether it is an objection or a non-binding comment, and numbered
within those categories.


IEEE has initiated the process to have the 1003.1 effort brought into
the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) arena.  IEEE
1003.1 Draft 12 is also a ``Draft Proposed International Standard (ISO DP).''
The convenor is Jim Isaak:  see below for his address.

The National Bureau of Standards is producing a Federal Information
Processing Standard (FIPS) based on IEEE 1003.1.  It will probably
be available before the Full Use Standard, and may reflect Draft 12,
rather than the final 1003.1 standard.  For information, contact:

		Roger Martin
		National Bureau of Standards
		Building 225
		Room B266
		Gaithersburg, MD  20899
		(301)975-3295


Machine readable copies of the IEEE 1003.1 Trial Use Standard are not
and will not be available.  The same applies to copies of later drafts.

There is a paper mailing list by which interested parties may get
copies of drafts of the standard.  To get on it, or to submit comments
directly to the committee, mail to:

		James Isaak
		Chairperson, IEEE/CS P1003
		Digital Equipment
		ZK03-3/Y25
		110 Spit Brook Rd.
		Nashua, NH  03062-2698

		Tel.: (603)881-0480
		Fax.: (603)881-0120

		decvax!isaak

Sufficiently interested parties may join the working group.

The term POSIX also applies to the other P1003 subcommittees:
	group	subject		co-chairs
	1003.2	shell and utilities Hal Jespersen (UniSoft), Don Cragun (Sun)
	1003.3	verification	Roger Martin (NBS), Carol Raye (AT&T)
	1003.4	real time	Bill Corwin (Intel)

Inquiries regarding 1003.2, 1003.3, and 1003.4 should go to the same address
as for 1003.1.


The next scheduled meetings of the P1003 working groups are,
in 1987 and 1988:

Dec.	7-11	San Diego, CA
P1003.1 group will meet evenings on 7 and 8 and all day on the 11th.
P1003.2 group will meet 7-10 December.

April 1988	Washington, DC

Here are some details from Hal Jespersen regarding P1003.2:

The IEEE P1003.2 "Shell and Utilities" Working Group is developing a
proposed standard to complement the 1003.1 POSIX standard.  It will
consist of

	a shell command language (currently planned to be based on the
	Bourne Shell),

	groups of utility programs, or commands,

	programmatic interfaces to the shell (system(), popen()) and
	related facilities (regular expressions, file name expansion,
	etc.)

	defined environments (variables, file hierarchies, etc) that
	applications may rely upon

	utilities for installing application programs onto conforming
	systems

which will allow application programs to be developed out of existing
pieces, in the UNIX tradition.  The scope of the standard emphasizes
commands and features that are more typically used by shell scripts or
C language programs than those that are oriented to the terminal user
with windows, mice, visual shells, and so forth.

There has been some controversy in the Working Group about clarifying
the scope of the 1003.2 standard in regard to its relationship with
1003.1.  The Working Group is attempting to produce a standard that
will assume the structure and philosophy of a POSIX system is
available, but it will not require a fully conforming implementation as
a base.  For example, it should be feasible to eventually produce a
1003.2 interface on a V7 system, or on a system very close to POSIX,
but missing a few crucial features (as long as the shell and utilities
didn't need them).  However, the proposed standard will *not* be
unnecessarily watered down simply to allow non-POSIX systems to conform.

The group is currently seeking proposals for groupings of commands that
may be offered by implementors.  As groups are identified, command
descriptions will be solicited.  There is no requirement that the commands
be in System V or BSD today, but they should realistically be commands 
that are commonly found in most existing implementations.


There are three Institutional Representatives to P1003:  John Quarterman
from USENIX, Heinz Lycklama from /usr/group, and Mike Lambert from X/OPEN.

As the one from USENIX, one of my functions is to get comments from the
USENIX membership and the general public to the committee.  One of the
ways I try to do that is by moderating this newsgroup, comp.std.unix
An article related to this one appeared in the September/October 1986
;login: (The USENIX Association Newsletter).  I'm also currently on the
USENIX Board of Directors.  Comments, suggestions, etc., may be sent to

		John S. Quarterman
		Texas Internet Consulting
		701 Brazos, Suite 500
		Austin TX 78701-3243
		+1-512-320-9031
		uunet!usenix!jsq
		jsq@longway.tic.com

For comp.std.unix:
Comments:	uunet!std-unix-request std-unix-request@uunet.uu.net
Submissions:	uunet!std-unix		std-unix@uunet.uu.net

The September/October 1987 issue of CommUNIXations (the /usr/group newsletter)
contains a report by Heinz Lycklama on the /usr/group Technical Committee
working groups which met in September 1987.

If you are interested in starting another working group, contact
Heinz Lycklama:

		Heinz Lycklama
		Interactive Systems Corp.
		2401 Colorado Ave., 3rd Floor
		Santa Monica, CA 90404
		(213)453-8649
		decvax!cca!ima!heinz


Here is contact information for /usr/group working groups as taken from
the CommUNIXations article mentioned above, and updated by later information
from Heinz Lycklama.

/usr/group Working Group on Distributed File System:
	Art Sabsevitz			Frederick Glover
	AT&T Information Systems	MK02-1/H10
	190 River Road			Digital Equipment Corporation
	Summit, NJ  07933		Continental Boulevard
	201-522-6248			Merrimack, NH  03054-0430
	attunix!bump			603-884-5111
					decvax!fglover

/usr/group Working Group on Network Interface:
	Steve Albert
	AT&T Information Systems
	190 River Road, Rm. A-114
	Summit, NJ  07901
	(201)522-6104
	attunix!ssa

/usr/group Working Group on Internationalization:
	John Wu				Laurie Goudie
	Charles River Data Systems	Santa Cruz Operation
	983 Concord St.,		400 Encinal
	Framingham, MA 01701		Santa Cruz, CA 95060
	617-626-1000			408-458-1422

/usr/group Working Group on Graphics/Windows:
	Tom Greene
	Apollo Computer, Inc.
	330 Billerica Road
	Chelmsford, MA  01824
	(617)256-6600, ext. 7581

/usr/group Working Group on Realtime:
	Bill Corwin
	Intel Corp.
	5200 Elam Young Pkwy
	Hillsboro, OR 97123
	(503)681-2248

/usr/group Working Group on Database:
	Val Skalabrin
	Unify Corp.
	1111 Howe Ave.
	Sacramento, CA 95825
	(916)920-9092


/usr/group Working Group on Performance Measurements:
	Ram Chelluri			Dave Hinnant
	AT&T Computer Systems		SCI Systems, Inc.
	Room E15B			Ste 325, Pamlico Bldg
	4513 Western Ave.		Research Triangle Pk, NC 27709
	Lisle, IL 60532			(919)549-8334
	(312)810-6223

/usr/group Working Group on Security:
	Steve Sutton			Ms. Jeanne Baccash
	Consultant, Addamax		AT&T UNIX Systems Engineering
	1107 S. Orchard			190 River Road
	Urbana, IL  61801		Summit, NJ  07901
	217-344-0996			201-522-6028
					attunix!jeanne

/usr/group Working Group on Super Computing:
	Karen Sheaffer			Robin O'Neill
	Sandia National Laboratory	Lawrence Livermore Laboratory
	P.O. Box 969			P.O. Box 5509, L560
	Livermore, CA  94550		Livermore, CA  94550
	415-422-3431			415-422-0973
					oneill#r%mfe@lll-mfe.arpa Co-chair


The X3H3.6 display management committee has recently formed to develop
a model to support current and future window management systems, yet
is not based directly on any existing system.  The chair solicits
help and participation:

		Georges Grinstein
		wanginst!ulowell!grinstein


The Abstract of the 1003.1 Trial Use Standard adds:

	This interface is a complement to the C Programming Language
	in the C Information Bulletin prepared by Technical Committee X3J11
	of the Accredited Standards Committee X3, Information Processing
	Systems, further specifying an environment for portable application
	software.

X3J11 is sometimes known as the C Standards Committee.  Their liaison to
P1003 is

		Don Kretsch
		AT&T
		190 River Road
		Summit, NJ 07901

A contact for information regarding publications and working groups is

		Thomas Plum
		Vice Chair, X3J11 Committee
		Plum Hall Inc.
		1 Spruce Avenue
		Cardiff, New Jersey 08232

The current document may be ordered from

		Global Press
		2625 Hickory St.
		P.O. Box 2504
		Santa Anna, CA 92707-3783
		U.S.A.
		800-854-7179
		+1-714-540-9870 (from outside the U.S., ask for extension 245.)
		TELEX 692 373

Ask for the X3.159 draft standard.  The price is $65.


The /usr/group Standard is a principal ancestor of P1003.1, X/OPEN,
and X3J11.  It may be ordered for $15.00 from:

		/usr/group Standards Committee
		4655 Old Ironsides Drive, Suite 200
		Santa Clara, California 95054
		Tel: (408)986-8840
		Fax: (408)986-1645

/usr/group also publishes an eight page document, ``Your Guide to POSIX,''
explaining what IEEE 1003 is, and a nineteen page document, ``POSIX Explored,''
about technical aspects of IEEE 1003.1, and its relations to other standards
and historical implementations.  Contact /usr/group at the above address
for details.


The System V Interface Definition (The Purple Book, or SVID).
This is the AT&T standard and is one of the most frequently-used
references of the IEEE 1003 committee.

		AT&T Customer Information Center
		Attn:  Customer Service Representative
		P.O. Box 19901
		Indianapolis, IN 46219
		U.S.A.

		800-432-6600 (Inside U.S.A.)
		800-255-1242 (Inside Canada)
		317-352-8557 (Outside U.S.A. and Canada)

	System V Interface Definition, Issue 2
	should be ordered by the following select codes:

	Select Code:	Volume:		Topics:
	320-011		Volume I	Base System
					Kernel Extension
	320-012		Volume II	Basic Utilities Extension
					Advanced Utilities Extension
					Software Development Extension
					Administered System Extension
					Terminal Volume Interface Extension
	320-013		Volume III	Base System Addendum
					Terminal Interface Extension
					Network Services Extension
	307-131		I, II, III	(all three volumes)

The price is about 37 U.S. dollars for each volume or $84 for all three.
Major credit cards are accepted for telephone orders:  mail orders
should include a check or money order, payable to AT&T.


The X/OPEN PORTABILITY GUIDE (The Green Book)
is another reference frequently used by IEEE 1003.

The X/OPEN Group is "Ten of the world's major information system
suppliers" (at time of publication, Bull, DEC, Ericsson, Hewlett-Packard,
ICL, NIXDORF, Olivetti, Philips, Siemens and Unisys and subsequently
augmented by AT&T) who have produced a document intended to promote
the writing of portable applications.  They closely follow both SVID
and POSIX, and cite the /usr/group standard as contributing, but
X/OPEN's books cover a wider area than any of those.

The book is published by

		Elsevier Science Publishers B.V.
		Book Order Department
		P.O. Box 1991
		1000 BZ Amsterdam
		The Netherlands

and distributed in the U.S.A. and Canada by:

		Elsevier Science Publishing Company, Inc.
		52 Vanderbilt Avenue
		New York, NY 10017
		U.S.A.

There are currently five volumes:
	1) System V Specification Commands and Utilities
	2) System V Specification System Calls and Libraries
	3) System V Specification Supplementary Definitions
	4) Programming Languages
	5) Data Management

They take a large number of credit cards and other forms of payment.

Comments, suggestions, error reports, etc., for Issue 2 of the Green Book
may be mailed directly to:

		xpg2@xopen.co.uk
		uunet!mcvax!inset!xopen!xpg2

Information about X/OPEN can be requested from:

		Mike Lambert
		Technical Director
		X/OPEN Ltd
		c/o ICL BRA01
		Lovelace Road
		Bracknell
		Berkshire
		England
		+44 344 42 48 42
		mgl@xopen.co.uk
		uunet!mcvax!inset!xopen!mgl


Finally, 4.2BSD and 4.3BSD have influenced POSIX in a number of areas.
The best reference on them is the 4.3BSD manuals, published by USENIX.
An order form may be obtained from:

		Howard Press
		c/o USENIX Association
		P.O. Box 2299
		Berkeley, CA 94710

		415-528-8649
		{ucbvax,decvax}!usenix!office

4.3BSD User's Manual Set (3 volumes)		$25.00
	User's Reference Manual
	User's Supplementary Documents
	Master Index

4.3BSD Programmer's Manual Set (3 volumes)	$25.00
	Programmer's Reference Maual
	Programmer's Supplementary Documents, Volume 1
	Programmer's Supplementary Documents, Volume 2

4.3BSD System Manager's Manual (1 volume)	$10.00

Unfortunately, there are some license restrictions.
Contact the USENIX office for details.

Volume-Number: Volume 12, Number 26