Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uunet!longway!std-unix From: jsh@usenix.org (Jeffrey S. Haemer) Newsgroups: comp.std.unix Subject: Standards Update, IEEE 1201: User Interface Message-ID: <455@longway.TIC.COM> Date: 2 Dec 89 19:26:24 GMT Sender: std-unix@longway.TIC.COM Reply-To: std-unix@uunet.uu.net Organization: USENIX Standards Watchdog Committee Lines: 152 Approved: jsq@longway.tic.com (Moderator, John S. Quarterman) From: Jeffrey S. Haemer An Update on UNIX* and C Standards Activities December 1989 USENIX Standards Watchdog Committee Jeffrey S. Haemer, Report Editor IEEE 1201: User Interface Update Eileen Coons reports on the October 16-19, 1989 meeting in Brussels, Belgium: "The time has come," the walrus said, "To talk of many things: Of shoes -- and ships -- and sealing wax -- Of cabbages -- and kings -- And why the sea is boiling hot -- And whether pigs have wings." -- Lewis Carroll The P1201 committee is on a divine mission to define standards for user interface technologies. Lewis Carroll would have loved P1201 meetings. In keeping with the precedent set by previous P1201 meetings, this latest get-together was spirited. The quasi-good news is that, by the end of the session, not one, but 3 PAR's had been defined, as the group split into 1201.1 (Application Programming Interface), 1201.2 (Drivability - Look & Feel), and 1201.3 (User Interface Definition Language). One participant aptly named the proceedings "PAR Wars". There was agonized discussion over the various sub-group's missions, and an equal amount of agonized, and at times agonizing, wordsmithing over the .1 and .2 PAR's themselves. The .3 group thoughtfully elected to split off and define itself in private. The PAR's will be submitted via proper official channels to be blessed at the January SEC meeting. For anyone not familiar with the PAR process, PAR is an acronym for Project Authorization Request. An individual or group that believes some work should be done by an IEEE committee drafts a document describing the work, which is then submitted to the IEEE as a PAR. __________ * UNIX is a registered trademark of AT&T in the U.S. and other countries. December 1989 Standards Update IEEE 1201: User Interface - 2 - Usually the PAR is circulated to the IEEE membership in one of its mailings. The SEC (Steering Executive Committee) reviews the PAR during its next scheduled session, typically held during a POSIX meeting. The SEC votes on the PAR, and if the PAR is approved by the SEC, it is presented to TCOS (Technical Committee on Operating Systems). TCOS decides in which committee the work will be done. In the case of the PAR for User Interface, TCOS elected to divorce the work from the core POSIX effort (1003), and created P1201. The PAR becomes part of the statement of work and basic charter for the group doing the work. Fortunately, at this meeting the group finally created some real structure for itself. Ninety minutes into the meeting, the group decided to define an agenda! It also resolved that all meeting attendees should receive minutes of the meeting, e-mail snafus notwithstanding. Jim Isaak, the chair of the 1003 SEC, helped with structural definition by supplying IEEE rules and charter information, explaining the balloting process, and listing action options open to the committee. Seven ballot alternatives were proposed, ranging from submitting a proposal for immediate ballot, to disbanding 1201, packing our tents, and going home. A vote was called, and although there was no consensus (hardly a surprise), the heavy favorite was a proposal to adopt Motif's API as the basis for a standard API specification, and to extend it to accommodate aspects of Open Look's look & feel. This general direction was unpopular with a vocal minority, however, so the group took a break then reconvened, discarded the vote and returned to its original, pre-poll path of action: defining a specification for an API based on neither Motif nor Open Look, but on some new API -- probably a hybrid of the two. [Editor's note: I've heard more than one person express ill-ease about the restricted range of choices being considered. Why is there no mention of NeXT/Step, for example? A noticeable feeling among people who aren't on the committee is that it's too early to try to standardize in this area, and that the answer to the question, "Motif or Open Look?" should be, "No thanks." The answer to the implied question, "Why is there a P1201 and why are we doing this now, anyway?" seems to be is that NIST, the National Institute for Standards and Technology (the people who bring you FIPS), is pushing hard for rapid creation of a GUI standard.] Two presentations were made: one by AT&T, in favor of the joint API concept, and one by OSF, arguing against its feasibility. In an unusual and unfortunate departure from Robert's Rules of Order, this December 1989 Standards Update IEEE 1201: User Interface - 3 - was followed by a critique of -- some thought, attack on -- the second presentation by one of the acting chairs, Clive Feather of X/OPEN. P1201 may be many things but, so far, staid isn't one of them... On a more neutral note, several representatives from organizations working on UIDL technologies made presentations about what they were doing in that arena, and then went off to form P1201.3. God bless them. The rest of the group broke into the .1 and .2 sub-groups for working sessions during most of the remaining meeting time. Each group reviewed its newly drafted PAR. P1201.1 also spent time comparing Motif and Open Look, identifying and exploring the differences between the two API's, and looking for potential drivability issues that could be deferred to P1003.2. P1003.2 took a similar course of action, comparing the looks and feels of the two technologies. It's rumored that the .1 group will be meeting Dec. 4 - 5 in Cambridge, MA to pursue their quest for a merged API. Interested parties should contact Betty Dall, AT&T, for more details. (E-mail ejd@attunix.att.com, or phone Betty at 201-522-6386.) There was also a spirited discussion regarding when and where the next P1201 meetings should be held. After various alternatives were explored, and only two (or was it three...?) votes, the group decided to keep P1201 meetings in the same vicinity and timeframe as POSIX meetings, since many attendees need, or want, to participate in POSIX as well. All in all, it wasn't too bad. The weather in Brussels was nice, the Belgian beer was pretty good, and the meeting was, um..., entertaining. December 1989 Standards Update IEEE 1201: User Interface Volume-Number: Volume 17, Number 83