From meissner@lynx.cs.usfca.edu Tue Mar 17 05:20:59 1992
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From: meissner@lynx.cs.usfca.edu (Loren P. Meissner)
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To: sc22wg5%dkuug.dk@ion
Subject: ADT proposal re WG5/L12
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 Andrew I am afraid that we are stuck with the procedures that have
failed us so miserably in recent years, so long as we are working with
ANSI X3.  There are other alternatives, such as IEEE standards, which
have radically different procedures.  Somehow in the early 1960's
somebody decided ANSI was the group to go with, and now we seem to be
afraid to re-examine that decision.
 Some of us have been aware, at least since "77" (as in Fortran 77)
that ANSI's "blessing" is not the only way to get public acceptance of
something like a language standard.  It just got started that way by
accident.
 A lot of our problems since about 1986 have been due to X3 procedures
-- whereby technical excellence at the Technical Committee level is
subordinated to political pressure at the X3 level -- and the way this
subordination was taken advantage of by wheeler-dealers at the X3 level.
 This whole mess could be avoided with a whole new approach, as you
suggest, but the essential step that would make it possible would be
for the Fortran technical community to declare its independence from
X3 political deal-making and find another home for its work.
 It has gotten worse recently -- 
1. X3 has tightened its procedures: it used to leave the technical
workers much more to their technical work, but now they are watch-
dogging much more closely;
2. politically oriented "forces" have left the political ivory tower
of X3 and have invaded the technical committee.
 If I sound cynical, it is because I am.
-Loren Meissner