Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!aplcen!uunet!usenix!std-unix From: jsh@usenix.org Newsgroups: comp.std.unix Subject: Standards Update, USENIX Standards Watchdog Committee Message-ID: <386@usenix.ORG> Date: 30 Jun 90 02:28:24 GMT Sender: std-unix@usenix.ORG Reply-To: std-unix@uunet.uu.net Lines: 127 Approved: jsq@usenix (Moderator, John Quarterman) From: An Update on UNIX*-Related Standards Activities June, 1990 USENIX Standards Watchdog Committee Jeffrey S. Haemer, Report Editor USENIX Standards Watchdog Committee Jeffrey S. Haemer reports on spring-quarter standards activities What these reports are about Reports are done quarterly, for the USENIX Association, by volunteers from the individual standards committees. The volunteers are familiarly known as snitches and the reports as snitch reports. The band of snitches and I make up the working committee of the USENIX Standards Watchdog Committee. Our job is to let you know about things going on in the standards arena that might affect your professional life -- either now or down the road a ways. We don't yet have active snitches for all the committees and sometimes have to beat the bushes for new snitches when old ones retire or can't make a meeting, but the number of groups with active snitches continues to grow (as, unfortunately, does the number of groups). We know we currently need snitches in 1003.6 (Security), 1003.11 (Transaction Processing), 1003.13 (Real-time Profile), and nearly all of the 1200-series POSIX groups, There are probably X3 groups the USENIX members would like to know about that we don't even know to look for watchdogs in. If you're active in any other standards- related activity that you think you'd like to report on, please drop me a line. Andrew Hume's fine report on X3B11.1 is an example of the kind of submission I'd love to see. If you have comments or suggestions, or are interested in snitching for any group, please contact me (jsh@usenix.org) or John (jsq@usenix.org). If some of the reports make you interested enough or indignant enough to want to go to a POSIX meeting, or you just want to talk to me in person, join me at the next set, July 16-20, at the Sheraton Tara, in Danvers, Massachusetts, just outside of Boston. The USENIX Standards Watchdog Committee also has both a financial committee -- Ellie Young, Alan G. Nemeth, and Kirk McKusick (chair); __________ * UNIX is a registered trademark of AT&T in the U.S. and other countries. June, 1990 Standards Update USENIX Standards Watchdog Committee - 2 - and a policy committee -- the financial committee plus John S. Quarterman (chair). An official statement from John: The basic USENIX policy regarding standards is: to attempt to prevent standards from prohibiting innovation. To do that, we + Collect and publish contextual and technical information such as the snitch reports that otherwise would be lost in committee minutes or rationale appendices or would not be written down at all. + Encourage appropriate people to get involved in the standards process. + Hold forums such as Birds of a Feather (BOF) meetings at conferences. We sponsored one workshop on standards. And are cosponsoring another in conjunction with IEEE, UniForum, and EUUG. (Co-chairs are Shane P. McCarron and Fritz Schulz . Contact them for details.) + Write and present proposals to standards bodies in specific areas. + Occasionally sponsor White Papers in particularly problematical areas, such as IEEE 1003.7 (in 1989). + Very occasionally lobby organizations that oversee standards bodies regarding new committee, documents, or balloting procedures. + Starting in mid-1989, USENIX and EUUG (the European UNIX systems Users Group) began sponsoring a joint representative to the ISO/IEC JTC1 SC22 WG15 (ISO POSIX) standards committee. There are some things we do not do: + Form standards committees. It's the USENIX Standards Watchdog Committee, not the POSIX Watchdog Committee, not part of POSIX, and not limited to POSIX. + Promote standards. + Endorse standards. June, 1990 Standards Update USENIX Standards Watchdog Committee - 3 - Occasionally we may ask snitches to present proposals or argue positions on behalf of USENIX. They are not required to do so and cannot do so unless asked by the USENIX Standards Watchdog Policy Committee. Snitches mostly report. We also encourage them to recommend actions for USENIX to take. John S. Quarterman, USENIX Standards Liaison June, 1990 Standards Update USENIX Standards Watchdog Committee Volume-Number: Volume 20, Number 65