Subject: SC22 N2460 (Rationale and Questions on JTC1 Technical Direction

From: "william c. rinehuls" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 1997 17:00:35 -0400 (EDT)

__________________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
N2460

April 1997

TITLE:              Rationale and QUestions to JTC 1 National Bodies
                    and Subcommittees Regarding JTC 1 Technical
                    Directions and Organization

SOURCE:             Secretariat, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22

WORK ITEM:          N/A

STATUS:             Mr. Follett, JTC 1/SC22 Chairman, will be drafting
                    a proposed SC22 response to this document.  The
                    draft response will be emailed to the SC22 Member
                    Bodies and WG Conveners for comment by May 9.
                    These comments will be considered in developing
                    the formal SC22 response to JTC 1.

CROSS REFERENCE:    N/A

DOCUMENT TYPE:      N/A

ACTION:             To SC22 Member Bodies, WG Conveners and HODs for
                    development of comments or for information, as
                    applicable.

Address reply to:
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22 Secretariat
William C. Rinehuls
8457 Rushing Creek Court
Springfield, VA 22153 USA
Tel:  +1 (703) 912-9680
Fax:  +1 (703) 912-2973
email:  [email-masked]

__________________end of title page; beginning of text _______________

ISO/IEC JTC 1                                                         
Information Technology                                                

ISO/IEC JTC 1 N 4631                   

DATE:  1997.04.16     

REPLACES                                     

DOC TYPE:
Other document                                                        

TITLE:
Rationale and Questions to JTC 1 National Bodies and Subcommittees    
Regarding JTC 1 Technical Directions and Organization                 

SOURCE:
JTC 1 Ad Hoc on JTC 1 Reengineering                                   

PROJECT:                   

STATUS:
In accordance with Recommendation 9 taken at the April Ad Hoc Meeting in 
Berlin, this document is forwarded to JTC 1 Subcommittees for a response to 
the questioned asked.  SC responses are due to the JTC 1 Secretariat 
no later than 15 May 1997.  These responses will be circulated to JTC 
1 National Bodies for review and consideration when developing their 
National Body positions on JTC 1 structure and organization.  
National Bodies and Subcommittees are reminded that in order to meet 
the JTC 1 mandate, the reengineering Ad Hoc must develop its final 
recommendations (including those on structure and organization) at 
its June Ad Hoc meeting for approval by JTC 1 National Bodies.                     

ACTION ID: COM 

DUE DATE: 1997.05.15

DISTRIBUTION:  P and L Members
		   JTC 1 Subcommittees                                             

MEDIUM:  D

DISKETTE NO.: 119       

NO. OF PAGES: 6         

Secretariat, ISO/IEC JTC 1, American National Standards Institute, 11 
West 42nd Street, New York, NY  10036; Telephone: 1 212 642 4932;    
Facsimile:  1 212 398 0023; Email: [email-masked]                 

							ISO/IEC JTC 1 N 4631

Title:		Rationale and Questions to JTC 1 National Bodies and Subcommittees 			Regarding JTC 1 Technical Directions and Organization

Source:		JTC 1 Ad Hoc on JTC 1 Reengineering

Action:		This document is forwarded to JTC 1 National Bodies and 	
		Subcommittees.  Subcommittees are asked to respond by 15 May 
		1997.  The Subcommittee responses will be considered at the June 
		Re-engineering Ad Hoc meeting.

A NEW APPROACH FOR JTC1

Continuing technological and market developments require JTC 1 to adapt
itself to satisfy the changing requirements.  The resulting approach is
expected to attract new resources and areas of work for JTC 1. 

As a first stage in responding to these developments, JTC 1 has, with help
from the subcommittees, eliminated a number of projects which had
inadequate support.  JTC 1 has also revised its working procedures to
improve efficiency and market relevance. 

We wish to maintain JTC1's existing strengths such as the open, world wide
consensus process and a stable structure to ensure ongoing maintenance of
its published standards.  JTC 1 standards provide the platform for world
trade and endeavour to limit the effect of national differences causing
barriers to trade. 

In essence we need to provide market relevant standards in a timely
manner. 

As part of the re-engineering process we have adopted a business team
concept, subject to a 60 day letter ballot, to help with selecting market
relevant projects and getting them off to a flying start.  We are
proposing to adopt a pilot project which is documented in JTC 1 N xxxx and
your cooperation will help us to ensure the success of the project. 

As a further part of the process, we have identified twelve technical
directions which we believe are of strategic market relevance.  These
twelve directions are based on the situation today.  See attachment 1. 
The list of directions will be re-aligned as external circumstances
demand.  By focussing on these technology directions, JTC 1's standards
will be more efficient, effective and market oriented.  We expect that
these technical directions will provide a focus for new technologies as
they arise for example, if market requirements dictate the a new
distributed application service standard needs to be developed, our
technical direction in this area would give JTC 1 a ready home for the
standard to be developed. 

Having attempted to map the existing structure onto these new directions
we observe some consequential changes to JTC1 and its subcommittees may be
required.  This mapping is displayed in the table in Attachment 2. 

Any changes to the existing JTC 1 structure will be handled in phased
increments in order not to adversely affect the ongoing work. 

While we have made every attempt to create the mapping with the greatest
accuracy, we would appreciate any comments which would enable us to
improve it.  We have scheduled that we conclude the plan at the June
re-engineering meeting for final agreement at the JTC 1 Plenary in
September.  Your response to these proposals by 15 May 1997 is required to
help us meet our objectives. 

We have prepared a draft recommendation to JTC1, on how we believe the
present work program of each SC or in some cases, a WG or a project of a
SC maps to the technical directions. Please comment on the completeness
and consistency of these Technical Directions. 

In addition please comment on the following questions. 

1.  Do you consider that your present projects * align with the proposed
recommendation? 
    If not please provide rationale for a different alignment within the
overall set of technical directions. 

2.  Do you believe your current projects* within the proposed technical
direction will benefit from a synergistic fit with other projects,* (if
any) in your technical direction? 

3. Do you believe any of your current projects require significant
interactions with projects* in other technical directions?
    If so which ones? 

4a. Do you believe supplementary standardization activity should be
undertaken to sufficiently address the technical direction and which adds
value to the work of JTC 1?  For example there appears to be added
standardization needs in the technical direction "Security"  beyond the
present work program of SC27. 

4b.  Do you consider that the resources to address these areas will be
available? 

* or project grouping

								Attachment 1

Descriptions of Technical Directions

Data Capture
Coding (data formats, syntax, and structure) and enabling technologies for
individually and uniquely identifying items and entities. 

Distributed Application Services
Enabling technologies for use in a distributed environment in order to
achieve concrete distributed application services. They constitute: 
  Data management functions including definition of data structures and
semantics for a complete range of datatypes, together with services and
protocols for storage, access and update of such data;
  
  Specification of application functions independently of the details of
their distribution (through the use of object technology); together with
the configuration and management of those functions across enterprises. 

  Distributed systems services functions such as transaction processing,
electronic messaging, directory and systems management; and for
specification of techniques used for messaging in electronic commerce. 

ID Cards and Related Devices
Interchange and manipulation of stored digital data on optical, magnetic
and/or semiconductor media, using on demand optical, magnetic, electrical
and/or RF techniques. 

Information Interchange Media
Physical characteristics of storage media using optical, magnetic or other
technologies and structure of data for storage and interchange, including
algorithms for the loss-less compression of data. 

IT Terminology
Terminology for Information Technology and related fields, intended to
achieve consistency throughout worldwide markets and users. 

Multimedia & Representation
Coding of hypermedia and multimedia and coded representation of picture,
audio and character information, including
	- sets of compression and control functions for use with such
information,
	interchange of such information.

Networking and Interconnects
Functions necessary for establishment and control of information exchange
via networks and physical interfaces. They comprise, for communications,
interfaces and protocols, for transport, network management and selected
application services and the physical infrastructure. 

Office Equipment
Basic characteristics, performance, test methods and other related aspects
of office equipment and products such as: 

  Printers
  Copying equipment
  Digital scanners
  Facsimile equipment

Programming Languages and Software Interfaces
Programming languages, their environments and systems software interfaces,
including
		- specification techniques,
		- common facilities, and
		- language bindings.

Security
Generic frameworks, methods, techniques and mechanisms for Information and
Communication Technology security, including interfaces for invoking
security functionalities, related APIs and protocols. 

Software Engineering
Processes, supporting tools and supporting technologies for the
engineering of software products and systems. 

User Interfaces
User-system interfaces for input devices such as keyboards, mice, pointers
and pens; rules for systems control by voice recognition, presentation
techniques, dialogues, graphic symbols and icons including those for
people with special needs. 

							Attachment 2

	Technical Directions			Currently Involved Working 
						Entities		

Data Capture					SC 31

Distributed Application Services		SC 21 (except ASN.1), SC 18/WG 4,    
						SC 30, SC 14

Identification Cards and Related Devices	SC 17

Information Interchange Media			SC 11, SC 23

IT Terminology					SC 1

Multimedia and Representation			SC 29, SC 2, SC 24, ASN.1, SC 18/WG 8

Networking & Interconnects			SC 6, SC 25, SC 26 

Office Equipment				SC 28

Programming Languages & Software 
Interfaces					SC 22

Security					SC 27

Software Engineering				SC 7

User Interfaces					SC 18/WG 9

______________________--end of document SC22 N2460 __________________