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From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: comp.std.unix,comp.org.ieee
Subject: Re: Opinions on prospective standards sought
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Date: 23 Apr 91 21:55:58 GMT
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Submitted-by: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)

In article <130193@uunet.UU.NET> pc@hillside.co.uk (Peter Collinson) writes:
>at this time, we will not go ahead with accepting the proposals as
>POSIX projects.
> ...
>	Was the decision of the SEC wrong?

No, it was precisely right.  IEEE and its minions very badly need to
exercise a bit more judgement about what gets pursued as a standard.
This was a step in the right direction.  It is a travesty to produce
a "standard" for each manufacturer's different solution to the same
problem, the more so by the "direct ballot" (translation:  "do it our
way, papa knows best") route.  It is far more important to standardize
things on which there genuinely is consensus.

There is also the entirely separate issue that many people (e.g. me)
feel that *any* standard in this area is premature, since we just don't
understand it well enough yet.
-- 
And the bean-counter replied,           | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
"beans are more important".             |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry


Volume-Number: Volume 23, Number 38