From: NU013809@NDSUVM1.BITNET (Greg Wettstein) Subject: The need for POSIX compliance. Date: 24 Feb 1993 07:23:04 GMT
I am aware of the fact that Linux is, I believe, POSIX.1 compliant. I
also believe that the GNU utilities conform to various additional levels
of POSIX.N compliancy. What I do not understand is who and or what is
behind the drive for POSIX compliance. I know that the various levels
of POSIX have been defined through the IEEE but little beyond that.
What I need is a general pointer to material describing what POSIX is
all about. The reason for this is that I am locked in a somewhat mortal
political battle which may decide our ability to innovate. I have a
network of Linux machines which are operating very efficiently in a
mission critical application for our center. Unfortunately this
approach runs counter to the 'true blues' in our computing resource
department which want to replace everything we have done with an IBM
proprietary DOS based networking system, sigh..... :-(
I need to argue for our open system approach and thus need to become more
well versed on the ins and outs of POSIX. I believe that the Feds have
mandated that any systems vended for government contract need to meet
a certain level of POSIX compliance.
I would (deeply) appreciate any pointers that the denizens of the network
could sling at me, e.g. reference articles, standards documents etc. that
would allow me to explain and document what POSIX compliance means. It
would be an extremely interesting coup to be able to 'legitimize' Linux
in a commercial application such as ours. Thanks in advance for any
help and/or information which may be forthcoming.
As always,
Dr. G.W. Wettstein
Oncology Research Division Computing Facility
Fargo Clinic / MeritCare
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Phone: 701-234-2833
`The truest mark of a man's wisdom is his ability to listen to other
men expound their wisdom.'