For your information, the IEEE has sent out the following invitation to ballot on a new Real-time standard . . .

Title: P1003.26: Information Technology — Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) — Part 26: Device Control Application Program Interface (API) [C Language]

— Forwarded mail from [email protected] —

Subject: Invitation to Ballot for P1003.26

Invitation to Ballot
The Computer Society/Portable Applications Standards Committee invites you to ballot on the following:

Title: P1003.26: Information Technology — Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) — Part 26: Device Control Application Program Interface (API) [C Language]

Scope: This work will define an application program interface to device drivers. The interface will be modeled on the traditional ioctl() function, but will have enhancements designed to address issues such as “type safety” and reentrancy.

Purpose: Realtime systems often contain numerous special devices, many of which are accessed through device drivers. The purpose of this project is to define an interface to these device drivers. This will benefit both users and writers of device drivers by providing a uniform model of communication between application software and device drivers.

If you are interested in participating in this electronic ballot, you must respond by 2002-11-23, 11:59 PM Eastern Time.

Instructions for responding to this electronic Invitation to Ballot

This Invitation to Ballot is to advise you that a Sponsor Ballot will be conducted in the near future on the existing or proposed Standard that is referenced in the Title above. The IEEE Standards Association is seeking to determine whether you wish to participate in this Sponsor Ballot.

1. Review the Title, Scope, and Purpose above to determine the subject matter of the Standard.
2. If you are *NOT interested* in participating in the Sponsor Ballot of this Standard, simply discard this e-mail. No further action is required on your part.
3. If you *ARE interested* in participating in the Ballot, you must respond by filling out the web-based form at http://standards.ieee.org/cgi-bin/bsignup/0000380

Your Classification refers to your relationship to the subject matter of this specific document (e.g., are you a User of this technology?). If you have a combination of interests (e.g., I am both a User and a Producer of this technology), then you should select the General Interest classification. Other classifications may be added to meet RevCom requirements of balance.

IMPORTANT:

You must be a current IEEE-SA member to ballot, or pay a per-ballot fee. Information on joining the IEEE Standards Association can be found at http://standards.ieee.org/sa-mem/join.html

To participate, you must have access to the World Wide Web to submit a vote and comments, and to download the draft. The draft is posted in Adobe “PDF” document format and can be viewed online, or it can be downloaded and printed if desired. You will need a copy of Adobe's Acrobat Reader (3.0 or higher) to view or print the draft. If you do not have the program, it is freely available from Adobe at http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep.html

Obligations and Responsibilities of Balloters

If you choose to participate in this electronic ballot, once the ballot opens you will be provided the URLs for the subject document and the ballot form. You will typically have 30 days to review the document and return the ballot with your vote. The IEEE requires that a minimum of 75% of the balloting group return their ballots for the ballot to be valid. As such, by agreeing to participate in this ballot you have an *obligation* to respond.

Failure to return a completed ballot may cause your name to be removed from the Invitation to Ballot list (i.e., the balloting pool), precluding your receiving Invitations to participate in future Sponsor Ballots.

NOTE: This obligation to respond described above does *not* apply to Recirculation Ballots (an additional ballot of a document you have previously voted on). You only need to respond to a Recirculation Ballot if you wish to change your initial vote. If you do not respond to a Recirculation Ballot, your last recorded vote will be carried forward.

The names of all voters will be listed in the front matter of the standard when it is published. No contact information or how you voted will be included. The paragraph above the balloting group listed will state: “The following members of the balloting group voted on this standard. Balloters may have voted for approval, disapproval, or abstention.”

Any question regarding this e-mail should be sent to the IEEE-SA Balloting Center at [email protected]

— End of forwarded mail from [email protected] —

[Thanks to Andrew Josey of the Open Group for submitting this announcement.]

 
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