[TUHS] Re: ANSI (C) vs IEEE (POSIX) Standards Body Selection

The POSIX Standard for the UNIX System was actually started under the umbrella of /usr/group, which was comprised mostly of commercial companies and users of the UNIX system. /usr/group was the forerunner of UniForum. I chaired the /usr/group standard from 1981 to 1984, after which we turned the work over to the IEEE, chaired by Jim Isaac and co-chaired by myself. I worked for INTERACTIVE Systems Corp, in Santa Monica, CA- the first commercial UNIX company that provided for UNIX system software on the DEC PDP11 and VAX computers, and led the porting of the UNIX System to many different computer architectures from micro to mainframe. Heinz On 6/26/2024 11:52 AM, segaloco via TUHS wrote: audioskeptic(a)gmail.com> wrote: International Meetings. POSIX, it's entirely possible that ANSI accredited IEEE to standardize things. They have done this to many various groups for standards within their wheelhouse. Sometimes this has worked well, sometimes it has worked to the interest of some particular entity, speaking as someone who has spent one to many days hanging out in standards meetings as a "technical expert". wrote: POSIX. I did participate for a while in the IEEE standards process (not POSIX, but something else), and I knew it as a large, very active, well managed organization, always eager to take on new things (such as the thing that I was engaged in). So maybe that was one reason. software was chaired by a person from DEC (forgot his name). I'm sure DEC had a strong interest in a UNIX-based standard, if only to make sure that it didn't go completely wild and negate DEC's huge head start in selling machines to run UNIX. wrote: rationale behind the selection of standards bodies for the publication of UNIX and UNIX-adjacent standards. C was published via the ANSI route as X3.159, whereas POSIX was instead published by the IEEE route as 1003.1. Was there every any consideration of C through IEEE or POSIX through ANSI instead? Is there an appreciable difference suggested by the difference in publishers? In any case, both saw subsequent adoption by ISO/IEC, so the track to an international standard seems to lead to the same organizations. this discussion: "An American National Standard IEEE Standard Pascal Computer Programming Language". In this case, ANSI/IEEE 770 X3.97 is the Pascal standard as sponsored by both IEEE *and* ANSI. The lines can certainly blur. Another example of a language standard under IEEE is 1076, VHDL. Could it be interpreted as such: publication of standards in the field of electrical engineering and adjacent fields. ANSI, in turn, is a national general standards body that publishes standards created by groups such as IEEE as well as those created relatively independently by their own committees such as X3. ANSI, but the likelihood of ANSI cooking something up in their own committees and then bouncing it out to IEEE is lower if present at all? eBay right now https://www.ebay.com/itm/145798619385