Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bbn!rochester!udel!gatech!mcnc!rti!xyzzy!throopw From: throopw@xyzzy.UUCP (Wayne A. Throop) Newsgroups: comp.lang.c Subject: re: standards development process Message-ID: <789@xyzzy.UUCP> Date: 15 Apr 88 15:55:33 GMT References: <12960@brl-adm.ARPA> Organization: Data General, RTP NC. Lines: 29 > dsill@NSWC-OAS.arpa (Dave Sill) >> (Henry Spencer) >>There is NO LAW against more users getting involved in ANSI >>standardization work!! The problem is that few of them bother. > It's not that they don't bother. Compiler-marketing companies > obviously have more at stake in the standardization than the typical > company that uses their compilers. Hence, they are more willing to > support an employee on a standards committee. Dave's position doesn't make sense to me. Don't companies that *use* those compilers have a stake in the future portability of their code, and thus have a very convincing motive to support employees on the standards comittee? The psychology of such consumer-oriented participation (or rather: lack thereof) seems to me to be based on the "We'll live with whatever the comittee comes up with." fallacy. This fallacy seems to fit neatly into the category of "not bothering". (And by the way, many compiler-vendor representatives have much more reason to be conservative about feeping creaturism than do compiler users. After all, they have to spend money to develop the feeping creatures that folks come up with.) -- If the argument to .TH contains any blanks and is not enclosed by double quotes, there will be dird-dropping-like things on the output. --- Unix User's Manual, MAN(7) entry, BUGS -- Wayne Throop !mcnc!rti!xyzzy!throopw