[TUHS] Other POSIX Candidates?

[Heinz Lycklama]

The POSIX standard is based on the /usr/group standard
which we started in 1981 under /usr/group, and turned
into the standard in 1984, which was then turned over
to the IEEE under the leadership of Jim Isaac. As the
chair of the /usr/group standards effort, we made every
attempt to include as many UNIX vendors as possible,
systems vendors as well as application vendors. The
work of the /usr/group standard was joined by all major
computer manufacturers - mainframe, mini-computer,
and micro-computer - plus applications vendors who
were interested in having their apps run on as many
platforms as possible. The members of the /usr/group
standard committee also included the vendors of
UNIX-like systems who did not have access to the source
code for the UNIX System.

ISC  (my employer at the time) also developed a UNIX
emulation product that ran on the VAX VMS system in 1979.
We had an interest in providing a platform for as many
applications as possible on the VAX UNIX emulation platform.
I do not recall that Govt contracts were a big concern at
the time that we started the UNIX standards effort, but it
did become a concern over the years.

My recall of the UNIX standards beginnings.

Heinz

On 8/6/2024 11:09 AM, arnold at skeeve.com wrote:
> For a long time DEC had "VMS POSIX" product.  I don't know much
> more about it, other than that it existed and was what you
> describe, more or less.
>
> Marc Rochkind <mrochkind at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> As I remember, part of the rationale was that DEC wanted something that
>> could be specified in an RFP that was defined in terms of an interface,
>> rather than an implementation. In theory this would allow them to propose
>> VMS with an appropriate interface layer. I don't know if anything like this
>> was ever created. But the interface standard sure was, of course.
>>
>> On Tue, Aug 6, 2024 at 11:32 AM Rik Farrow <rik at rikfarrow.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I recall something different than what others had suggested. When the US
>>> government issued requests for proposals, they weren't permitted to specify
>>> products by name. In particular, if you wanted something that wasn't
>>> Microsoft, you couldn't actually specify that it be Unix.
>>>
>>> So POSIX was born partially as a way of letting it be known you wanted a
>>> Unix variant rather than something else.
>>>
>>> Certainly porting was an issue. I did work for a software shop in the late
>>> 80s and early 90s that produced graphics software, and porting between Unix
>>> systems was relatively easy, compared to, say, moving the software to
>>> Apollo's DomainIX, a sort of Unix-like version of Apollo Domain. With Unix
>>> systems and this software, the biggest issue was fonts, as the software
>>> needed to be able to calculate the extent, that is, the bounding box, for
>>> text that was to be displayed.
>>>
>>> Strangely enough, the other big issue was time.
>>>
>>> Rik
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, Aug 6, 2024 at 6:29 AM Peter Weinberger (温博格) via TUHS <
>>> tuhs at tuhs.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> and the folks from PARC wanted a more RPC-based open OS, according to
>>>> my not-yet-fully-retrieved memories.
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Aug 6, 2024 at 2:40 AM <arnold at skeeve.com> wrote:
>>>>> segaloco via TUHS <tuhs at tuhs.org> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Another way to put it would be as a chicken and egg, which came
>>>> first, ...
>>>>>> ..., or the ongoing need for UNIX standardization finding sponsorship
>>>>>> by the working groups, IEEE, etc.?
>>>>> This.
>>>>>
>>>>> Try to understand what things were like at the time. There were
>>>>> a ton of competing Unix systems, all different:
>>>>>
>>>>> - IBM: AIX on the mainframe and PS/2, which were different from
>>>>>    AIX on the RT/PC and later RS/6000 (workstations).
>>>>>
>>>>> - DEC: Ultrix on minicomputers and microvaxen, and later on MIPS
>>>>>    based workstations
>>>>>
>>>>> - Data General: DG/UX on their minicomputers.
>>>>>
>>>>> - Pyramid: A BSD/System V hybrid RISC minicomputer
>>>>>
>>>>> - Sun: Workstations, 680x0 based and later SPARC based, and servers.
>>>>>    Initially BSD based, later SVR4 based.
>>>>>
>>>>> - Workstations from HP, Tektronix, NBI, others I've probably forgotten,
>>>>>    3B2 and 3B1/Unix PC from AT&T... The list goes on and on and on.
>>>>>
>>>>> Things split roughly along BSD/System V lines, but code wasn't portable.
>>>>> Did you use bcopy() or memcpy()? index() or strchr()? There was lots
>>>>> of mixing and matching happening, too.
>>>>>
>>>>> There was a crying need for a standard. The mess is what begot GNU
>>>>> Autoconf, which made a difference at the time. Having the ANSI C
>>>> standard
>>>>> also helped.
>>>>>
>>>>> HTH,
>>>>>
>>>>> Arnold
>> -- 
>> *My new email address is mrochkind at gmail.com <mrochkind at gmail.com>*