I think historically ANSI did languages.

But, I don't know specifically why IEEE became the standards body for POSIX. I did participate for a while in the IEEE standards process (not POSIX, but something else), and I knew it as a large, very active, well managed organization, always eager to take on new things (such as the thing that I was engaged in). So maybe that was one reason.

Maybe a greater reason is that the part of IEEE standards that did software was chaired by a person from DEC (forgot his name). I'm sure DEC had a strong interest in a UNIX-based standard, if only to make sure that it didn't go completely wild and negate DEC's huge head start in selling machines to run UNIX.

Marc

On Wed, Jun 26, 2024 at 12:22 PM segaloco via TUHS <tuhs@tuhs.org> wrote:

Good morning, I was wondering if anyone has the scoop on the rationale behind the selection of standards bodies for the publication of UNIX and UNIX-adjacent standards. C was published via the ANSI route as X3.159, whereas POSIX was instead published by the IEEE route as 1003.1. Was there every any consideration of C through IEEE or POSIX through ANSI instead? Is there an appreciable difference suggested by the difference in publishers? In any case, both saw subsequent adoption by ISO/IEC, so the track to an international standard seems to lead to the same organizations.

- Matt G.