The myth of application source-code conformance

Abstract

m Branding and certifying applications source-code conformance to POSIX standards and The Open Group specifications demands attention every few years. The general premise is that an organization purchasing POSIX.1-certified or XPG4-branded systems should be able to purchase corresponding applications. This reasoning defeats the purpose of source-code portability specifications, and has no economic foundation. It confuses applications users with applications developers, and provides information to purchasing management that is grossly out of context. here have been at least two cases in the past two years within the POSIX community where people outside the standards development group have claimed that without POSIXconforming applications to run on their POSIX-conforming implementations, they see no value in these specifications. The Open Group is now demanding a similar program. If such programs for applicationconformance branding are implemented, I believe they will fail due to poor economic and technical foundations, and will confuse customers making standards-based purchases. To support this argument, I first describe source-code portability and porting and their place in current applications development practices. I examine source-code portability standards, discuss how implementation conformance is defined, and what conformance certification entails. I then apply this discussion to the problem of application source-code conformance and certification. We define the following terms: