The International Standards Organisation is balloting its members to discover whether they believe that the IEEE Posix portable operating system standard based on Unix System V is worthy of becoming a work item. The results are expected in a week or so. The ballot papers are expected to be returned with comments raising issues such as the status of Unix as a licenced product; Jim Isaak, Chairman of the Posix committee, says that the IEEE will answer any concerns like this by pointing out that use of Posix does not require any connection with the AT&T product although taking a System V licence would obviously be an easy and cost-effective means of getting there. It is anticipated that Posix will be granted the status of a work item which means that participating ISO members will check the draft standard to ensure that non-standard terminals have not been specified, documents within the ISO domain have been properly referenced and so forth, and feed the findings back to the IEEE.
