[TUHS] Anyone have a copy of POSIX.1 (IEEE 1003.1-1988) draft 6?

David Anderson via TUHS tuhs at tuhs.org
Fri Oct 24 14:23:32 AEST 2025


A friend is digging into the history of the tar format and its variations. The GNU tar format originates from a non-compliant variation of POSIX ustar, which appears to have been inherited from John Gilmore's pdtar. And according to pdtar's source code, draft 6 of POSIX.1-1988 was the reference used to implement ustar. Thus, it would be interesting to peruse draft 6, and see if the variations stem from later changes to ustar, or ambiguities in the draft's wording, or what.

Anyone happen to have an old printout or digital copy of that draft lying around? Allegedly the draft would have been in circulation circa 1985-1986.

Cheers,
- Dave


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