🚀 go-pugleaf

Submitted-by: karish@pangea.stanford.edu (Chuck Karish)

In article <1aq5h3INN5ub@ftp.UU.NET> eggert@twinsun.com (Paul Eggert) writes:
>RCS, a widely used free version control system, was made Posix-compliant
>about a year ago.  In the past, VMS users ported old RCS releases to
>native VMS.  You'd think that VMS Posix would save these users a lot of
>work, since it should be much easier to port new RCS releases to VMS Posix
>than to native VMS.  But so far as I know, nobody has yet ported RCS to
>VMS Posix.  I'm not a VMS expert, so I don't know the details, but the
>general sentiment seems to be that if you really want to use RCS under
>VMS, you have to port it to native VMS; VMS Posix doesn't do the job.

I've been told that the VMS POSIX.1 implementation simply
creates a large VMS file in which a POSIX.1-compliant file
system can be built, and thus creates a limited sandbox in
which POSIX.1 programs can run.  I can understand why an
implementation of RCS running in such an environment would
be less than ideal; it wouldn't be able to manage files in
the VMS file system.

>There's a big difference between conforming to a standard and supporting a
>standard.  In the past, skeptics have suggested that the widely advertised
>Posix interfaces for non-Unix operating systems from DEC and HP (and
>promised interfaces from IBM and Microsoft) are merely smokescreens to
>fool government bean counters who require Posix.

If this is to change, it'll have to be because government
users buy into the POSIX philosophy and demand systems that
support POSIX functionality as a fully capable operating
system interface.  I don't know whether the right place to
express this demand is in the FIPS that mandates POSIX or
in the specifications of the individual procurement.  I
lean toward the latter, because it's difficult to require
that systems "do the right thing" and still (a) be fair to
all vendors and (b) give the government agencies enough
leeway to procure the products they need.

The public comment period on the proposed FIPS 151-2
ended a week ago, so if you disagree with my opinion
you've just missed an excellent opportunity to influence
US government policy on the issue.
--

    Chuck Karish          karish@mindcraft.com
    (415) 323-9000 x117   karish@forel.stanford.edu


Volume-Number: Volume 29, Number 56