From walt@netcom.com Tue Mar 17 19:06:25 1992 Received: from netcom.netcom.com by dkuug.dk via EUnet with SMTP (5.64+/8+bit/IDA-1.2.8) id AA04090; Tue, 17 Mar 92 19:06:25 +0100 Received: by netcom.netcom.com (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA13967; Tue, 17 Mar 92 10:06:38 PST Date: Tue, 17 Mar 92 10:06:38 PST From: walt@netcom.com (Walt Brainerd) Message-Id: <9203171806.AA13967@netcom.netcom.com> To: SC22WG5@dkuug.dk Subject: Future procedures X-Charset: ASCII X-Char-Esc: 29 > From: adt10@uts.amdahl.com (Andrew D. Tait) > To: sc22wg5@dkuug.dk > Subject: (SC22WG5.55) WG5L12 Proposal - The Wrong Approach > > I am both concerned and disappointed that the WG5L12 committee has > developed a proposal for the future management of Fortran Standards > activities which merely embodies the practices and procedures that have > failed us so miserably in recent years. > > WE NEED A RADICALLY DIFFERENT APPROACH. > > This must be PRECISE, no wishy-washy nonsense of "about the year 1995", or > "about the year 2000": > > 1. We will produce a maintenance revision in 1995. > 2. We will produce a complete revision by 2000. > 3. We will only undertake work which can be completed within this > schedule. > 4. We will organize and manage our resources to achieve these > objectives. This is a two-edged sword. What if it turns out there are good sound technical reasons for delaying something one year (as opposed to political fiddling just to to try to block or delay the standard, as happened last time)? Are you absolutely stuck with your schedule? (Actually, probably no matter what the document says, if the committee votes to do something different, that is what will happen, so it is not clear that changing the document will have any effect.) > Organization > ___________ > > WG5 meeting once a year can be no more than a review and approvals body. > It cannot effectively manage anything. I propose the following: As reflected in my proposal, I was hoping that WG5 would play a stronger role, but I guess there has been no enthusiasm or commitment for such a role from the members, so perhaps there is no choice here. I find the suggested idea (sorry, I deleted it) from Andrew that nobody be allowed to develop technical proposals except those assigned, to be very unfortunate. I think much of our best technical work was done by those who just good a good idea and was enthused enough to go do the work to make a proposal. The subgoups played the role of reviewing and coordinating proposals in certain areas, but that did not prevent somebody from pursuing something on his/her own. I think that part worked well and would not want to see it changed if I were still doing the work. > The standard will be available in machine readable format and no > organization, national or international, shall have the right to > copyright it. The document will be available to all on request for, at > most, a fee to cover the cost of reproduction, media, and shipping. For the drafts, this is exactly what I have been proposing. I don't think ANSI is going to give up the copyright on the final document, but that shouldn't matter to the committee if it is widely available prior to adoption as a standard. > A master must be identified and protected against changes. How do you provide the protection? > Reviews > _______ > > The rules for conducting reviews of proposed standards must be tightened. > I recommend that we adopt a set of rules modeled on those of IEEE. > Obviously we probably cannot require people to pay fees for the privilege > of reviewing proposals, but we can insist on specific formats and require > comments to be submitted in machine readable form SO THAT WE CAN GET OUR > JOB DONE ACCORDING TO THE SCHEDULE. I find the idea of confining reviews to members of a "balloting group" to be inferior to the general public review. Providing an ftp electronic copy of the draft, as well as inexpensive paper ones, would greatly improve the process. I think requiring electronic responses in a specific format is reasonable and would improve the responses. > If we have to change the way X3 and/or ISO does business in order to make > more effective use of the resources available, we must not hestitate to do > so. As Loren indicates below, I think there is very little chance of changing many processes. The only possibility is to change sponsorship from ANSI to IEEE (having recently participated on POSIX committees, it seems to me that the politics is closer to the technical committee level than at ANSI even) or ISO, which does not seem to be interested. Nothing looks very promising. > Andrew D. Tait > ************************************************************************** > From: meissner@lynx.cs.usfca.edu (Loren P. Meissner) > > . . . > 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 To provide one more example: when I proposed distributing the electronic version of F77 about three years ago, they said I could not because they were developing there own system for doing this, which would be available "real soon". And I have had no response from my second request sent in October 1991 (copies of which I distributed to this group). > From: psmith@mozart.convex.com (Presley Smith) > ... > The current FORTRAN has been TOO SUCCESSFUL for a bunch of techies to hack > on it at will... Companies have invested BILLIONS of dollars in FORTRAN > applications and they want to maintain that investment and not have to > invest again. This is so absurd I am not quite sure how to respond, but I sure don't want members of X3 designing the programming language I have to use. The whole problem is just the reverse and exactly as Loren says; the technical design of Fortran 90 has suffered significantly because of political interference at the X3J3 level. > The main "procedures" of the ANSI and X3 process have NOT changed since long > before the FORTRAN 77 standard was done. This bull of the "politically > oriented forces" is just that. This message is a bunch of sour grapes... > I was on X3J3 before the Fortran 77 standard was done, and you all may be assured that the relationship of X3 with X3J3 has changed VERY significantly since then, whether or not there have been significant changes in their official procedures. > Grow up Loren. and make mature, constructive comments like the one above! > Enough said. Presley Too much said.