The Portable Application Standards CommitteeWelcome to the official web site of the IEEE's Portable Application Standards Committee (PASC). PASC is the group that has and continues to develop the POSIX family of standards.
What are the PASC Administrative Functions?
What are the PASC Working Groups?
PASC is the IEEE's Portable Application Standards Committee. It is chartered with defining standard application service interfaces - most notably those in the POSIX family. PASC was formerly known as the Technical Committee on Operating Systems.
Information Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) -- Part xx: ....The original, trial-use, standard published in 1986 was actually called IEEE-IX (IEEE's version of UNIX). However, this was rapidly changed to POSIX in time for the second printing (also in 1986).
The standard is heavily influenced by UNIX® -- and in the latest revision now merges with The Open Group's Base Specifications which comprise the core of the Single UNIX Specification -- in the mid eighties there was a plethora of UNIX operating systems, most of which had names ending in X (e.g. HPUX, AIX, PNX, Xenix, etc), and that certainly influenced the naming decision.
The following quote appears in the Introduction to POSIX.1: "The name POSIX was suggested by Richard Stallman. It is expected to be pronounced pahz-icks as in positive, not poh-six, or other variations. The pronounciation has been published in an attempt to promulgate a standardized way of referring to a standard operating system interface".
The SEC, and indeed all of PASC, is chaired by Lowell Johnson of Unisys Corporation. The role of the SEC is to coordinate all of the various PASC activities, including authorizing the sponsorship of new activities under PASC.
Once PASC standards have been developed by a PASC working group, they enter the IEEE's balloting process. The PASC Balloting Vice-chair is Jay Ashford of IBM. The Balloting Vice-chair is responsible for ensuring that balloting groups are well formed, that ballots are conducted in a fair and consistent fashion, that projects enter and complete ballot in a timely manner, and also acts as a liaison between PASC volunteers and the IEEE Standards Office.
The PASC Logistics Committee chair is Curtis Royster of DISA. The Logistics Committee is responsible for identifying future meeting sites, coordinating the available of meeting space, and coordinating the distribution of PASC materials via electronic and traditional means. This committee meets quarterly during the regular PASC meetings.
Within the IEEE, each completed standard must have a designated interpretations group to address issues arising from implementors of the standards. Within PASC, there are several such committees. The PASC Interpretations Functional chair is Andrew Josey of The Open Group. The Interpretations Functional chair is responsible for coordinating the activities of all the PASC interpretations committees, forming new interpretations committees as they are needed, and managing the PASC interpretations process. The Functional chair also maintains information about the interpretations process on this server.
Each active PASC project must have a designated Technical Editor. These editors are responsible for applying changes to each draft standard, and coordinating the activities of various content authors within each working group. PASC is currently lacking a Functional Chair for Technical Editing, although Nick Stoughtonis acting in that role at present. The Functional Chair for Technical Editing is responsible for ensuring consistent conventions across the PASC standards through coordinated development and maintenance of style sheets, macros, and style guides that are then used by each Technical Editor.
The IEEE P1003.21 working group, a part of the PASC Distributed Services activities, is developing standard interfaces to Real-time distributed communications. The materials of this group will soon be available on this server, but in the interim they are available in the group's unofficial archive.
Participation in PASC, as in all IEEE standards activities, is open to any individual who wishes to participate. While there is no requirement that PASC participants be IEEE members, membership in the IEEE Standards Association is encouraged of all PASC participants. Once a draft standard is completed and enters the balloting process, only IEEE Standards Association members are permitted to join the balloting pool to vote on its ratification as an official IEEE standard.
There are two levels of participation in PASC. The first, and most important, is participation in quarterly PASC meetings. These meetings are held throughout the United States (and periodically in Europe). The second is to participate through receiving, reviewing, and commenting on PASC Working Group materials that are distributed via mailing lists and the internet. (Remember that to vote on the documents you need to join the official ballot pool).
The next PASC SEC Meeting is scheduled for 2006. Other PASC groups are now meeting out of cycle, check here for details.
PASC generally schedules its meetings at least one year in advance. Many of the working groups are now meeting out of cycle with the SEC.
PASC-related materials fall into two categories: formal and informal. These materials are primarily distributed electronically from the pasc.org server. Materials are distributed in ASCII format if that is appropriate. For materials where presentation is important, or where there are graphics involved, PASC has determined that Adobe PDF format will be used for distribution. Readers for many platforms are available from here
.PASC Formal Materials include the working documents of working groups, background rationale documents, and early drafts of emerging standards. These materials are considered the intellectual property of the IEEE, and as such are protected by IEEE copyright. Drafts of the revision to POSIX 1003.1 are available from the Austin Group web site.
Informal PASC materials are usually discussions among working group members of interesting issues facing their community. These materials are distributed through official PASC working group mailing lists. These mailing lists are open to any individual or organization through this subscription form. However, access to mailing list (search-able) archives is only available to those participants who have subscribed.
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Last Modified: Monday, 12-Sep-2005 14:23:56 BST
