[TUHS] Origin of the name POSIX (was: ANSI (C) vs IEEE (POSIX) Standards Body Selection)

[Dan Cross]

On Wed, Jun 26, 2024 at 9:47 PM Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:
> On Wednesday, 26 June 2024 at 20:44:12 -0400, Clem Cole wrote:
> > rms had nothing to do with the name posix.  I have no idea where that
> > comment came from.
>
> At the very least, from rms himself:
> https://stallman.org/articles/posix.html
> There's a reference to this page in the Wikipedia page on POSIX.
>
> > The p1003 committee for Ieee was the portable operating system standard and
> > at the time adding ix was the norm.  POSIX became the term we all used to
> > refer to the work we doing.  Rms was not involved in any way
>
> rms suggests that he was involved in the committee?  Not true?  Maybe
> a different, related committee?

A way to verify this would be to look for attendee lists from early
POSIX meetings, though I'm having trouble locating them. My initial
search turned up this document, a 1995 retrospective from Hal
Jespersen, where he credits Stallman for coining the name "POSIX":
https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/210308.210313.

Still, that's not a primary source, and it's mentioned only in
passing. I trust Clem's recollection more.

Incidentally, and relevant to an earlier question, "why go through
IEEE for the standard?" that's addressed in Jespersen's reminiscence.

        - Dan C.