From: atkinson@itd.nrl.navy.mil (Randall Atkinson)
Newsgroups: comp.std.unix
Subject: Re: 1003.7.1/Palladium/Existing Practice
Date: 28 Jan 1993 15:49:08 -0800
Organization: Naval Research Laboratory, DC
NNTP-Posting-Host: ftp.uu.net
X-Submissions: std-unix@uunet.uu.net

Submitted-by: atkinson@itd.nrl.navy.mil (Randall Atkinson)

In article <1k9braINN70g@ftp.UU.NET> jason@cnd.hp.com (Jason Zions) writes:
>>Also, there was already precedent set within POSIX by the POSIX.2
>>inclusion of lp(1) as a command line interface for printing.
>Doug Gwyn already addressed this; one can bind the lp interface to Palladium
>and still have the 1003.2-required right thing happen.

  Unfortunately, regular ordinary users ALSO need something like
lpq/lpstat and lprm/cancel and POSIX.2 did not address those needs at
all.  I'd be MUCH MUCH happier if the POSIX.7 folks or the POSIX.2
folks had in fact provided those customary existing practice
interfaces.  Some folks might be surprised how much installed base
there is in people and shell scripts that use these commands.

> The completed OSI APIs (1224, 1224.1, and 1224.2) are all based on
> specifications developed by X/Open and other groups and for which
> there were multiple independent implementations. 

  I had construed POSIX == 1003.x only and never ever use OSI and
so have not been trying to track that at all.  (I print lots of
things daily by contrast).

  Palladium is existing practice in very few if any places, while
lp/lpr and friends are existing practice in an absolutely overwhelming
number of places already.

> Sure, it's not close to a majority of the users of distributed
> printing technology, but no one way of doing real-time on Un*x is
> dominant either, ...

  I don't recall saying I was a big fan of the real-time work either.
In fact, I'm inclined to dislike most of it because UNIX/POSIX is
almost certainly not the most appropriate basis for a real-time OS.  I
used to work in real-time controls and so while I am a fan of UNIX, I
also know enough to know that UNIX is not the optimal OS from a
real-time perspective.

  Palladium is used in very very few places compared with lp/lpr and
friends.  A trivially small number by comparison, in fact.

> I admit to being the one that asked them to probe their mock-ballot
> group for the acceptability of Palladium, and the one that helped the
> rest of the TCOS SEC accept their word that it was okay.
 
  Word on the street is that there were only about 25 ballots on the
Palladium mock-ballot.  I dunno if that is true.  If it is even
approximately true, then the mock ballot tells no one anything either
way about the suitability of Palladium -- simply because of too few
ballots to interpret in any meaningful way.

  I really really hope a whole lot more folks participate in the real
ballot when that happens.  I have real fears that not enough people
will thoroughly look through the POSIX.7 proposal when the time comes
(and I've certainly at least gotten a lot more people interested in
the effort, though some are VERY unhappy with how I did that.)  Time
will tell if very many people will participate.

Ran
atkinson@itd.nrl.navy.mil


Volume-Number: Volume 30, Number 47