Subject: SC 22 N 3175 - National Activity Report of Canada to the Plenary Meeting of ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22, September 12-15, 2000

From: Lisa Rajchel <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 10 Sep 2000 05:31:29 -0400

_____________________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
N3175

TITLE:
National Activity Report of Canada to the Plenary Meeting of ISO/IEC
JTC1/SC22, September 12-15, 2000

DATE ASSIGNED:
2000-09-10

SOURCE:
National Body of Canada

BACKWARD POINTER:
N/A

DOCUMENT TYPE:
National Body Activity Report

PROJECT NUMBER:

STATUS:
This document will be discussed under Agenda Item 7.2.9 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:  [email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]> 

_____________________end of title page______________

Canadian National Report 
to SC22 Plenary Sept 2000

National Activities

      Canada is represented to SC22 by delegates from the Canadian Standards
Association Committee on Programming Languages. We currently have activity
in

           WG3/APL,
           WG9/Ada,
           WG14/C,
           WG15/POSIX,
           WG19/Formal Languages,
           WG20/Internationalization,
           WG21/C++, and
           JSG.

CPL meets quarterly to discuss national and international business in these
languages. Most international standards in these languages and other
langugages are also made 
Canadian national standards.

 This year Canada is hosting WG 14 and WG 21 in Toronto in October.

Membership

      As with most countries we are challenged by shrinking membership and
to maintain active working  groups. Much of the reason is that most SC22
activities are largely in maintenance mode and there may be a perception
that there is little exciting to be done in this field. It is unfortunate
that the recent most exciting activity, Java, was handled poorly by the
copywrite owner.

Restructuring of WG20

  We believe that I18N is a fundamental requirement on programming
languages. We further believe that programming languages pay insufficient
attention to all of the  internationalization issues. It would be a  mistake
to curtail or weaken this work through the disbandment of WG20. The fact
that it is a JTC1 strategic direction clearly shows its importance. While it
is true that SC2 liaises with SC22, we believe  that the active presence of
WG20 members at plenary and on SC22 mailing lists has helped to give
internationalization more visibility and attention in PLs than it would have
otherwise received.

JSG

      With regret we support the disbandment of the JSG. The machinations
that SC22, ISO and ECMA/TC41 went through in trying to come to terms with
Sun clearly shows the different pressures and reactions of international
standards groups and corparate entities. We hope that the lesson of Sun is
not lost on SC22 or on JTC1 as it attempts to deal with the JTC1
restructuring proposals that are now under active consideration.

JTC1 restructuring

      Canada has reservations with the JTC1 restructuring proposals as they
are presently being considered. While we agree that international
standardization has seen a drop in 
activity while there has been a rise in the role of consortia, we do not
accept that this means, as some have said, that JTC1 is irrelevant. On the
contrary, we observe that ISO/IEC standardization is a prize that  is sought
by many companies and organizations. This would not be the case if such
standards were irrelevant.

      We note that many succesful standards have been developed and are
being used under the ISO/IEC umbrella. Many others are being developed and
brought to JTC1 through 
the internal processes and fast  track procedures.

      There have been expressions that JTC1 processes are too slow. If this
is true, then we prefer to see mechanisms in place to simplify existing
processes (such as letting SCs create their own work items) and work with
existing consortia to develop standards and bring them to JTC1 instead of
turning the representation on SCs upside down.

      As a small country we experience the influence that companies can
excert over even countries as large as ours. We are not convinced that
competitiveness and openness are 
served by permitting large commercial organizations equal voice with
national bodies in SC balloting.  Should SC22 wish to let companies
participate, we will not support motions that give 
commercial entities a voice equivalent to  national bodies, or that exclude
smaller organizations through fee structures.

      We do not think that the proposals being considered by JTC1 are
applicable to SC22. since the majority of work in SC22 has a large
maintenance component and most SC22 activities are fairly stable.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stephen Michell
Maurya Software Inc             Software Solutions 
29 Maurya Court                 for a Distributed
Ottawa, Ontario                       Heterogenous
Canada   K1G 5S3                      World
[email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]>  
                   tel: 613 720 5701 (w)    613 739 9695 (h)