Austin Group Status Update

Andrew Josey is the Director, Server Platforms, for the Open Group in Reading, England, and the chair of the Austin Group.

The Austin Common Standards Revision Group (CSRG) is a joint technical working group established to consider the matter of a common revision of ISO/IEC 9945-1, ISO/IEC 9945-2, IEEE Std 1003.1, IEEE Std 1003.2, and the appropriate parts of the Single UNIX Specification.

As of February 2000, two drafts have been produced, totaling some 2,700 pages of material. At the time of writing, preparation is well underway for Draft 2. Draft 3 integrates materials from the following base documents:

  Networking Services Issue 5 Version 2
  IEEE Std 1003.1d-1999
  IEEE Std 1003.2d-1994
  IEEE Draft Std P1003.1a
  IEEE Draft Std P1003.2b
  IEEE Draft Std P1003.1j

It is worth noting that this will be the first revision to the Commands and Utilities volume since 1992.

After production of Draft 3, there is a two-month review period before the plenary meeting in May. Comments should be sent to the review reflector and use the aardvark comment format (see <https://www.opengroup.org/austin/aardvark/format.html> for more information).

During the review period, a report on the changes needed for alignment with c99 will be produced. This can then also be discussed in plenary before Draft 4.

Draft 4 will be the feature-complete draft of the specification, and the new features over Draft 3 that are anticipated (subject to agreement of the plenary) are c99 alignment and 1003.1q.

The next plenary meeting will be held during the week commencing May 15th.

Summary slides giving the latest Austin Group status are available at <https://www.opengroup.org/austin/materials/jan2000/>. Slides from the January teleconference are available at <https://www.opengroup.org/austin/materials/jan2000/teleconference/>.

To participate in the Austin Group visit the Web site at <https://www.opengroup.org/austin/>.