*BSD News Article 36778


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From: terry@cs.weber.edu (Terry Lambert)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.386bsd.misc
Subject: Re: Nailed down to 386bsd or linux, now which one?
Date: 10 Oct 1994 00:16:46 GMT
Organization: Weber State University, Ogden, UT
Lines: 42
Message-ID: <37a15e$bel@u.cc.utah.edu>
References: <36djkn$nm8@girtab.usc.edu> <36qeaf$jt4@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <MICHAELV.94Oct4095313@MindBender.HeadCandy.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.weber.edu

In article <MICHAELV.94Oct4095313@MindBender.HeadCandy.com> michaelv@MindBender.HeadCandy.com (Michael L. VanLoon) writes:
] This should be taken with a large bucket of salt, however (as Terry
] Lambert points out), since none of the systems have had an official
] POSIX verification suite run on them.

Actually, VSX (the X/Open POSIX validation suite) and NIST/PCTS (the
American National Institute of Standards and Technology POSIX validation
suite) have been run against FreeBSD, NetBSD, and Linux.

Conformance and use of the POSIX tradmark have more to do with the
process of getting the tests run by an official lab and branded by X/Open
or NIST than they have to do with how the OS's did in the tests.

For those who care, the order from least exceptions to most exceptions
was NetBSD, FreeBSD, Linux for NIST and Linux, NetBSD, FreeBSD for VSX.

I didn't run the tests, I don't have that kind of money; so don't
pester me.  8-).

None of them passed with less than 35/49 exceptions in either run.

If someone wants to kick $50,000 out for a lab certification *after*
fixing all the exceptions -- $150,000 for the testbed -- be my guest.

Of course this is all irrelevent since none of the three groups constitute
a legal entity that can entery into contracts.  And without Spec 1170
having been ratified, UNIX branding (the most interesting one) still
requires going through the old branding processs -- ie: licensing and
using SVR4 sources.


It's stupid to argue about standards conformance when all one side can
say is "Oh Yeah?" and all the other side can say is "Yeah!" and neither
side can do anything about the challenge "put up or shut up"...
except "shut up".


					Terry Lambert
					terry@cs.weber.edu
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.