POSIX (i.e., the 'base specification' for the Single UNIX™ Specification, which a trademark of Bell Labs, or AT&T, or X/Open, or the Open Group, or somebody) is an open standard — or so they tell me. Trouble is it's awfully hard to get ahold of the standard itself, considering how 'open' it is. If you've tried to find it yourself, you've probably wound up on here on the IEEE website, where they will gladly let you download a PDF for the low, low price of $500.00 USD, or maybe here, where you can purchase it for CHD 238,00 (Swiss francs). Perhaps you've been naivigating the Open Group's slick troff-to-html version — be sure you version of Netscape Navigator has frames support!
It took me an absurd amount of time to figure this out, so I thought I'd share —
You can in fact get a full copy of the standard, without being extorted by an international standards body.
Basically, to access the standard, you have to join the Austin Group, the working group responsible for drafting the specification. It's not exactly advertised, but you can actually do this online:
- Create an account at the Open Group website, here.
- Log in at this page. From the menu on the left, click 'Manage My Activities'.
- At the bottom of the page, under Public Projects, you'll see The Austin Group. Click to 'join the activity'.
- Go to http://www.opengroup.org/austin/login.html and accept their conditions.
- At last, a link. It's password protected. Use the login you've just created.
While technically a "draft", I've confirmed this is the full, final standard.
If you're password is rejected, you haven't completed all the steps above successfully.
Go back and make you're actually 'joined the group', etc.
The actual direct link is here:
https://www.opengroup.org/austin/restricted/issue7-tc1/C138.pdf.
If going through the steps above is just too onerous a task for you, it seems like there are a couple of working logins at bugmenot.com at the time of this writing, but YMMV.
It's page turner, ladies and gents — enjoy yourself 3,906 pages of riveting operating system minutia.