From lrajchel@ANSI.org Sun Aug 27 18:23:51 2000 Received: from email1.ansi.org (mail.ansi.org [165.254.114.6]) by dkuug.dk (8.9.2/8.9.2) with ESMTP id SAA31657; Sun, 27 Aug 2000 18:23:50 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from lrajchel@ANSI.org) Received: by email1.ansi.org with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) id ; Sun, 27 Aug 2000 12:22:54 -0400 Message-ID: <2F81C8110D55D411882A0020356797B2151626@email1.ansi.org> From: Lisa Rajchel To: "'sc22info@dkuug.dk'" Cc: "'Simonsen, Keld'" Subject: SC 22 N 3156 - Refinements to the SC 22 Internal Procedures Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2000 12:22:44 -0400 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) _____________________beginning of title page___________ ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22 Programming languages, their environments and system software interfaces Secretariat: U.S.A. (ANSI) ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22 N3156 TITLE: Refinements to the SC 22 Internal Procedures DATE ASSIGNED: 2000-08-27 SOURCE: National Body of The Netherlands BACKWARD POINTER: N/A DOCUMENT TYPE: National Body Contribution PROJECT NUMBER: STATUS: This document will be discussed under Agenda Item 11.9 at the JTC 1/SC 22 Plenary Meeting. ACTION IDENTIFIER: FYI to SC22 Member Bodies DUE DATE: N/A DISTRIBUTION: text CROSS REFERENCE: DISTRIBUTION FORM: Def Lisa Rajchel ANSI 11 West 42nd Street New York, NY 10036 Telephone: (212) 642-4932 Fax: (212) 840-2298 Email: lrajchel@ansi.org _____________________end of title page___________ Title: Refinements to the SC22 internal Procedures Source: Dutch SC22 Panel Date: August 2000 Status: For discussion the the SC22 Plenary in Nara, September 2000 In the past period, the handling of FCD 14651 (International String Ordering) and the progression of this document to FDIS has caused some unease (to put it mildly) within our committee. Several NO votes and lengthy comments were issued during the FCD 14651 ballot, resulting in extensive changes in the document. In our opinion this implied that the document was not yet ready for FDIS ballot. Still, WG20 recommended progression to the FDIS stage, a recommendation that was adopted by the SC22 Secretariat. The Dutch SC22 committee found this highly unsatisfactory. Clause 12.6.3.9 of the Directives (N2793) states that "An FCD shall be advanced to FDIS only if the text has been stabilized, consensus has been demonstrated, and the substantial support of the P-members of the SC has been obtained". The first paragraph of clause 12.6.3.6 makes the SC Secretariat responsible for that judgment call; the second paragraph of that clause (which is a strange mixture of sentences making it difficult to deduct a binding between those sentences) makes it possible to delegate a recommendation on the progression to the WG. It is (apparently) the current practice that the SC Secretariat simply follows the WG recommendation. And that is where, in our opinion, the handling of FCD 14651 went wrong: the text was not stabilized, but the WG wanted progression. We realize that it is difficult (if not impossible) for the Secretariat to judge whether a document is (technically) stable or not. Still we feel that the Secretariat has and should retain the responsibility for the judgment call, and not automatically adopt the opinion of the WG. After all, the WG recommends, but the Secretariat has the final responsibility. Also, the Secretariat has to produce the Explanatory Report (clause 12.6.3.9, specifically the last bullet of that clause!), a task that cannot be delegated. Therefore, we propose that the 2000 SC22 Plenary meeting discusses the following refinements to the SC22 internal procedures: 1) When an FCD ballot closes, the SC22 Secretariat applies the FDIS Approval Criteria (see JTC1 Directives, clause 9.6) to the FCD ballot votes received, and indicates the result on the coverage of the summary of comments document; when the approval criteria are not met, the WG responsible for the disposition of the comments will NOT have the option to recommend progression of the document to FDIS. The remaining options for recommendation by the WG are then WD, CD or FCD. 2) SC22 reaffirms the responsibility of the SC Secretariat to establish whether the FCD to FDIS advancement criteria (see 12.6.3.9) are met; the grounds on which a decision is made are to be documented in the Explanatory Report. Finally, the Netherlands wants to stress its opinion that in the normal case (i.e., in practically all cases) the directives are used and implemented correctly and hence the above proposals will not have any noticeable effect. eof