From rinehuls@access.digex.net Fri Oct 18 21:51:06 1996 Received: from access5.digex.net (qlrhmEbBUV1EY@access5.digex.net [205.197.245.196]) by dkuug.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id VAA21702 for ; Fri, 18 Oct 1996 21:50:59 +0100 Received: from localhost (rinehuls@localhost) by access5.digex.net (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id QAA10963 ; for ; Fri, 18 Oct 1996 16:50:55 -0400 Date: Fri, 18 Oct 1996 16:50:55 -0400 (EDT) From: "william c. rinehuls" X-Sender: rinehuls@access5.digex.net To: sc22docs@dkuug.dk Subject: Document SC22 N2320 (SC22 Chairman's Report to JTC1) Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII ___________________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 N2320 November 1996 TITLE: SC22 Chairman's Report for the December 1996 ISO/IEC JTC 1 Plenary SOURCE: Secretariat, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22 WORK ITEM: N/A STATUS: N/A CROSS REFERENCE: N/A DOCUMENT TYPE: Chairman's Report ACTION: To SC22 Member Bodies, WG Conveners and HODs for information. Address reply to: ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22 Secretariat William C. Rinehuls 8457 Rushing Creek Court Springfield, VA USA 22153 Tel: +1 (703) 912-9680 Fax: +1 (703) 912-2973 email: rinehuls@access.digex. net ________________end of title page, beginning of text _________________ ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22 Programming languages, their environments and system software interfaces Secretariat: U.S.A. (ANSI) Subcommittee 22 Chairman's Report on the JTC 1/SC 22 Plenary Meeting 23-27 September 1996 The ninth plenary meeting of JTC 1 Subcommittee 22 was held 23-27 September 1996 in London, United Kingdom, twelve months after our previous plenary. This report will summarize the results of that meeting. We had a very successful meeting. Twelve National Bodies were represented. All fourteen of our working group conveners were either present or represented at the meeting, which, as usual, contributed significantly to the success of the meeting. The plenary adopted 46 resolutions, not including those expressing appreciation. All were adopted unanimously. SC 22 took note of the increasing interest in Java-related technology and initiated a study period to investigate standardization in this area. We established a study group with Dr. Bob Mathis as convener to coordinate this study. We anticipate that the first meeting will be held in early January, 1997, and be co-located with a meeting of SC 29/WG 12 whose MHEG work is also related to Java. SC 22 held an ad hoc session during the plenary to discuss the progress of the JTC 1 Ad Hoc Group on JTC 1 Strategy for Implementing Information Technology. Two documents were developed and subsequently approved for submission to the Ad Hoc meeting the week following our plenary. One, SC 22 Recommendations on JTC 1's Implementation of IT (JTC 1 N 4238), contained a number of specific suggestions regarding the JTC 1 Policy on Electronic Document Distribution and the Draft Transition Plan. The other, SC 22 Recommendations on the ISO/IEC Electronic Distribution and Copyright Policy (JTC 1 N 4239), strongly urged JTC 1 to request ISO and IEC to exempt JTC 1 and its subsidiary bodies from both electronic distribution restrictions and the recent change to the established copyright policy. Regarding the latter, SC 22 believes that this change will severely impact the willingness of organizations to contribute technology and specifications and to participate in JTC 1 standardization. I was authorized to represent SC 22 at the JTC 1 Ad Hoc meeting. SC 22's implementation of electronic document distribution is proceeding well. Short documents are being distributed by email to eleven National Bodies and almost all of our working group conveners. Seven NBs and most conveners have agreed to accept larger documents by ftp and a few draft standards documents have been made available in this way. In view of the restrictive ISO/IEC policy, we are grateful for the offer from Mr. Keld Simonsen of Denmark to set up a uniform ftp site with appropriate access controls for future SC 22 documents. The SC 22 World Wide Web page has been active for about a year and we currently have hot links to more detailed pages prepared by eight of our fourteen working groups. SC 22 approved a request to JTC 1 to obtain permission for our working group on the C language to place two Technical Corrigenda and two Record of Responses documents regarding ISO/IEC 9899 on its publicly accessible web page. SC 22 conducted a management review of all projects and subprojects, having received input from most of the National Bodies active in our projects. We forwarded the results of this review to the JTC 1 Ad Hoc on Re-engineering (see JTC 1 N 4254). Some projects have been recommended for withdrawal, as noted in the SC 22 Secretariat's Report. I should note one in particular, the COBOL binding to FIMS, which has successfully completed balloting; it is nevertheless recommended for withdrawal since market interest in FIMS has virtually disappeared. We examined those projects that have exceeded the time limits specified in the JTC 1 Directives and passed resolutions extending the time where justified. SC 22 prepared a response to the survey on conformity assessment and interoperability for forwarding to SWG-CA. SC 22 also prepared a summary of work items related to the Global Information Infrastructure for submission to SWG-GII. Two NPs were approved for forwarding to JTC 1 for ballot. One is on Interfacing Modula-2 to C and the other on APIs for Internationalization. The latter NP is very similar to one submitted a year ago which failed due to the lack of participation by five National Bodies who were P-members of SC 22. Since then, one interested NB has changed status from O-membership to P-membership and another NB has said it would participate. As a result, we have strong indications that at least five National Bodies will agree to participate this time. SC 22 agreed that the U.S. should submit for fast-track ballot an amendment to ISO/IEC 14519, POSIX Ada Binding, with real time extensions. SC 22 also agreed that the ECMA-230 standard for an IDL binding to PCTE, submitted for fast-track processing by ECMA, is suitable in content to satisfy our project 22.47.5. However, SC 22 noted that ECMA-230 is based on CD 14750 for IDL rather than on DIS 14750 currently under DIS ballot. SC 22 therefore recommended that ECMA consider the result of the DIS 14750 ballot and confirm that ECMA-230 is still appropriate for binding to the final international standard for IDL before the fast-track ballot is circulated. During the past year, JTC 1 approved an NP for SC 22 to develop profiles within its scope. At this plenary, we created two subdivisions of this project for development of ISPs relating to POSIX environments. SC 22 also agreed to subdivide the POSIX C Binding project for an advanced real time amendment and to subdivide the Fortran project for development of Part 3 of ISO/IEC 1539 on conditional compilation in Fortran. SC 22 sent a liaison statement to SC 2 with comments on PDAM 9 to ISO/IEC 10646-1 regarding identifiers for characters. SC 22 had requested this work a year ago and we appreciate SC 2's attention to our request. During our review of the NP for the Architecture Neutral Distribution Format (ANDF) submitted by SC 26, SC 22 was surprised to learn that a CD ballot was already underway within SC 26 using the simultaneous NP and CD ballot procedure. There was no indication on the NP ballot that the simultaneous procedure was being used. SC 26 is aware of SC 22 interest and indicated SC 22 on the NP for cooperation and liaison; however, SC 22 did not receive a copy of the CD document. SC 22 passed a resolution requesting SC 26 to send us a copy of the ANDF CD and to delay further processing of the ANDF project until SC 22 has had an opportunity for review and comment. Last year I reported the difficulty that we were having with the convener of our working group 13 on Modula-2. I am very pleased to report that the working group is now completely on track, having recently published the standard for the base language, with follow-on work well underway. SC 22 is grateful to Mr. Kees Pronk of The Netherlands for stepping into a difficult situation and acting as interim convener for the past year. Mr. Martin Schoenhacker of Austria has now been appointed as the new permanent convener. Two other conveners, Dr. Bill Plauger of WG 14 (C language) and Dr. Sam Harbison of WG 21 (C++ language) resigned as of this plenary. SC 22 accepted the offer of the United States, which holds both secretariats, for the nominations of Mr. John Benito for WG 14 and Dr. Thomas Plum for WG 21. Dr. Bob Mathis, convener of WG 9 (Ada), also announced his intention to resign but agreed to continue until a new convener is approved. Robert H. Follett Chairman, JTC 1/SC 22 ___________________-end of document SC22 N2320 ___________________