Date: Fri, 05 Jun 1998 10:44:23 -0700 From: Julian Elischer <julian@whistle.com> To: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: [Fwd: Re: POSIX standards.. fixing breakage?] Message-ID: <35782E77.2F1CF0FB@whistle.com>
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This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------6201DD564487EB717DE14518 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Could we form such a working group? I know we could get input from just about everybody on this as this has got to be the most broken part around.. julian --------------6201DD564487EB717DE14518 Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Return-Path: <nick@relston.co.uk> Received: (from daemon@localhost) by alpo.whistle.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id AAA24582 for <julian@alpo.whistle.com>; Fri, 5 Jun 1998 00:39:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: from whistle.whistle.com(207.76.205.131), claiming to be "whistle.com" via SMTP by alpo.whistle.com, id smtpd024580; Fri Jun 5 07:39:18 1998 Received: (from smap@localhost) by whistle.com (8.7.5/8.6.12) id AAA24838 for <julian@whistle.com>; Fri, 5 Jun 1998 00:39:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gatekeeper.whistle.com(207.76.204.2) by whistle.com via smap (V1.3) id sma024836; Fri Jun 5 00:38:48 1998 Received: (from smap@localhost) by gatekeeper.whistle.com (8.7.5/8.6.12) id AAA13221 for <julian@whistle.com>; Fri, 5 Jun 1998 00:38:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ringwood.relston.co.uk( 194.73.231.10) by gatekeeper via smap (V2.0) id xma013219; Fri, 5 Jun 98 00:38:23 -0700 Received: from nick (user163.intonet.co.uk [194.73.231.95]) by ringwood.relston.co.uk (8.8.8/8.8.5) with SMTP id IAA06541; Fri, 5 Jun 1998 08:38:09 +0100 (BST) From: "Nick Stoughton" <nick@relston.co.uk> To: <julian@whistle.com> Cc: "Jason Zions" <jazz@opennt.com> Subject: RE: POSIX standards.. fixing breakage? Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 08:36:05 +0100 Message-ID: <000201bd9054$991477f0$7ce749c2@nick.relston.co.uk> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 8.5, Build 4.71.2173.0 Importance: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.2106.4 In-Reply-To: <35771DAC.794BDF32@whistle.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: julian@whistle.com [mailto:julian@whistle.com] > Sent: Thursday, June 04, 1998 11:20 PM > To: nick@usenix.org > Subject: POSIX standards.. fixing breakage? > > > As you seem to be watching teh POSIX standards, could you let me know > what you would suggest as a path to take in stating or supporting > an effort to fix things that are obviously broken in present > posix standards. > > ? Well, there are several answers to this. First, we are actively considering a full revision of POSIX.1, possibly in conjunction with The Open Group updating the Single Unix spec. Such "repairs" would be considered in that project. However, now it is in the standard, there is existing industry practice working with it. This means we are unlikely to change the fundemental way an interface works. But, in a case where there was an alternative way of specifying it, we might introduce a new alternative interface that behaved differently. > > In particular "Posix file locking" > I have never yet met a single person who believed that the posix > file-locking was less than "brain dead". > THis particular standard has led to the introduction of more > obscure bugs and the bloating of mor ecode than one would believe > possible. > > The main problem is: > Locks are per file descriptor, except in the case where you close on of > the file descriptors, and the locks go away on all teh other file > descriptoors you have to that file. > > There has to be a way to get a change to this. > The standard says what it says. We can't change that. But we can add to it -- perhaps a flag you can set via fcntl for persistent locks. Actually, it may just be that one of the realtime subgroups is doing that already; I'll try and check. > > julian > I will note this for discussion in the revision project. Another approach, if you have enough people (about 4-5), might be to undertake a new project yourself. This would allow you to produce a new "POSIX File Locking" standard, which is stand-alone. If you would like to know more about how to do this, Jason Zions (jazz@opennt.com) is both chair of the working group responsible for POSIX.1 and chair of the committee that reviews new projects and advises them. I am also a member of both these groups. Hope this is useful -- Nick Stoughton --------------6201DD564487EB717DE14518-- To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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