PCTE - Defect handling

S.J.Dawes, 6 February 1996

1. Introduction

This note proposes how WG22 shall handle defect reports in accordance with the JTC1 and SC22 directives, both with respect to the inherited comments (EPs) and with respect to future defect reports. The relevant documents are:

JTC1 directives: ISO/IEC Directives: Procedures for the technical work of ISO/IEC JTC1 on Information Technology (Third Edition).
SC22 directives: SC22 N1236 (I have an electronic copy of this, attached as Annex B. Note that this document refers to the 2nd edition of the JTC1 Directives, though I believe this affects only the clause numbers.)
Defect Report Form: ISO/IEC Form 14. This is appended to the JTC1 procedures. An electronic copy does not seem to exist, so I have devised one, see Annex A.

2. Future procedure

The procedure we must follow is laid down in detail in the JTC1 and SC22 directives, but there are some choices left to the WG. The following is my reading of the procedures, with suggestions where there is a choice.

2.1 Submission

A defect report must be on the Defect Report Form, and may be submitted only by: a National Body, an SC or WG, the Project Editor, or a liaison organization (e.g. ECMA). They may be submitted to the WG convener or to the WG Secretariat.

At present comments are submitted by anyone, usually by e-mail using the old EP format, to me. I suggest that eventually we want defect reports to be submitted directly to the Secretariat (i.e. ECMA acting for the Swiss NB), on official forms, preferably by email; if anyone exercises their right to submit one to the Convener, the Convener will simply forward it to the Secretariat. Meanwhile I shall convert any that I receive into the defect report format and submit them to the Secretariat as Project Editor. I have tried this with a couple of recent comments from Udo Kelter, it seems quite reasonable (see Annex C).

2.2 Processing.

This is the responsibility of the WG as a whole, with the Convener responsible for ensuring that it happens. There are 5 parts to the process:

- Initial processing. This involves either the Convener or the Secretariat filling in items 1, 5, and 6 of the Defect Report and distributing it to the WG. I suggest this be done by the Secretariat

- Tracking. This involves maintaining a log of defect reports (see SC22 directives). I suggest this be done by the Secretariat It would be nice if it could be held on the ftp server and/or the WG22 WWW page. Note that the Convener needs to submit a Defect Report Index to the SC22 Secretariat just before each SC22 meeting.

- Developing (a response). This is done by the WG; we have well established procedures for this and I suggest the Project Editor should be overall responsible for actually producing the response, though it can be delegated to other members as appropriate.

- Publishing. Responses are published as Technical Corrigenda (TCs) or Records of Responses (RRs). I suggest it should be the Project Editor's responsibility to draft these, to be approved by WG22 and submitted to SC22 by the Secretariat.

- Distribution (of responses to submitters). Again I suggest this be done by the Secretariat

3. Existing comments

(i.e. those in 'Comments received on ISO/IEC 13719 : PCTE, version 3 (12 September 1995)' - none have been received since). I suggest:

- For comments received before the PCTE fast-track Ballot Resolution Meeting (i.e. up to EP-5000): when they are all resolved the Project Editor incorporate their resolutions into a single TC and/or a single RR. Possibly, for the record, a single defect report for these comments, referring to Comments received on ISO/IEC 13719, should be created.

- For comments received since the BRM (i.e. EP-5000 on): the Project Editor convert them individually into Defect Reports using the electronic form and submit them to the Secretariat as described in 2.1 above. There are 55 such comments, all unresolved.