Subject: SC22 N2711 - SC22 Business Plan - PLENARY AGENDA ITEM

From: "william c. rinehuls" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 13 May 1998 17:10:31 -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
N2711

TITLE:
SC22 Business Plan

DATE ASSIGNED:
1998-05-13

SOURCE:
Secretariat, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22

BACKWARD POINTER:
N/A

DOCUMENT TYPE:
Information from Chairman

PROJECT NUMBER:
N/A

STATUS:
Discussion of this document will be an agenda item for the August 1998 JTC
1/SC22 Plenary

ACTION IDENTIFIER:
FYI

DUE DATE:
N/A

DISTRIBUTION:
Text

CROSS REFERENCE:
N/A

DISTRIBUTION FORM:
Def

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

____ end of title page; beginning of report ___________________________

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22
Programming languages, their environments and system software interfaces
Secretariat:  U.S.A.  (ANSI)

		            Reply to:   Robert H. Follett		
					4709 Bristow Drive		
		                        Annandale, VA 22003 U.S.A.
					Tel.: 	1-703-941-1675 (voice/fax)	
					Email:	[email-masked]

BUSINESS PLAN FOR JTC1/SC22, Programming Languages, their Environments,
and System Software Interfaces

PERIOD COVERED:  October 1997  -  May 1998 

SUBMITTED BY:  Robert H. Follett, Chairman

1.  MANAGEMENT SUMMARY: 
 
1.1   JTC1/SC22 STATEMENT OF SCOPE:

Standardization of programming languages, their environments and systems
software interfaces such as:
*	specification techniques; and
*	common facilities and interfaces.
Excluded:  specialized languages or environments assigned to the program
of work of another Subcommittee or Technical Committee

1.2   PROJECT REPORT 

SC22 has at total of 57 assigned projects which, after subdivisions,  
result in 98 identifiable items of work (projects and subprojects).  Of
these, 49 are currently active in development and 49 are published 
standards, technical reports and amendments that are in maintenance mode.
None are planned for withdrawal at this time.

The SC22 Secretariat's report contains a complete listing of these
projects and related target dates.

1.3 	COOPERATION AND COMPETITION

Ada (WG9):
There are two major professional societies in this area: the Special
Interest Group on Ada (SIG) of the Association for Computing Machinery
and Ada-Europe.  The semi-annual meetings of WG9 are scheduled to
coincide with the major conferences organized by these two groups.
Informal but close cooperation with SIGAda is maintained by the convener.
The UK Head of Delegation to WG9 is also an officer of Ada-Europe.

There is one major vendor consortium, the Ada Resource Association (ARA).
Formal liaison with ARA is maintained.  WG9 is looking for opportunities
to transpose de facto standards from the ARA.

The United States Department of Defense (DOD) has  a continuing interest
in the Ada language.  Liaison is assured because DOD funds the convener
to serve in his position.  In addition, liaison and/or consultation are
applied as appropriate with other working groups of SC22, the SC22 Java
Study Group, and the IEEE Computer Society Software Engineering Standards
Committee.

APL (WG3):
WG3 has liaison with SC2/WG2 which has been very satisfactory in
developing the amendment that designates a correspondence between symbols
used by the APL language and the IS 10646 standard.

C (WG14):
Where appropriate, WG14 has established active liaisons with other SC22
working groups.  

C++ (WG21):  WG 21 has liaisons with other SC22 working groups on C,
POSIX and Internationalization.  With regard to the latter, it is using
the WG20 guidelines on extended characters.  It also takes account of the recommendations from WG11 on cross-language standards.

COBOL:  
WG4 cooperates closely with NCITS COBOL Technical Committee J4, to whom
SC22 has delegated the technical development and maintenance of COBOL.
WG4 works closely with the X/Open COBOL working group through a Category
C liaison.  WG4 also has liaisons to SC22 WG11 for language independent
work and WG20 for internationalization.

Fortran (WG5):
WG5 cooperates closely with the ANSI NCITS/J3 Fortran Technical
Committee, to whom it has delegated the technical development of Fortran
2000 as well as the maintenance of Fortran 95 (IS 1539-1:1997).  There is
also close contact with the industry-driven High Performance Fortran
Consortium, with many members of the HPF Consortium also being members of
J3 and/or WG5. Many of those responsible for the development of
commercial Fortran compilers are members of J3 and/or WG5.  Other
important liaisons are those with IFIP WG2.5 (Numerical Software) and
ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG20 (Internationalization).

Internationalization (WG20):  
WG20 works closely with CEN/TC304 which is developing an ordering
standard for European languages and also developed ENV 12005 which is a
standard for registering cultural conventions.

Since internationalization is important in many aspects of information
technology, WG20 has an extensive list of liaisons, primarily with a
number of SC22 working groups such as WG4, WG5, WG14, WG15, WG21, and
WG22.  Outside SC22, WG20 has had liaisons with SC18, SC18/WG9, SC2/WG2,
and SC21/WG3; this will be reviewed at the conclusion of the
reengineering activity.  Outside JTC1, in addition to CEN/TC304, WG20 has
liaisons with GUIDE/SHARE Europe, the Open Group, and ISO TC37/SC2/WG3.

Language Independent Projects (WG11):
The WG11 documents are mainly produced to be used by other programming
language committees.  Therefore, WG11 maintains liaisons with many of the
SC22 WGs.

Lisp (WG16):
The WG16 activities that produced ISLISP were done by collaborative work
of six regularly participating P-member nations; France (Convener),
United States (Project Editor), Canada, Germany, Japan, and United
Kingdom. These nations had close collaboration with their local Lisp
communities; for example, EuLisp community in European nations, X3J13 in
United States, and IPSJ-SIGSYM community in Japan.  The ISLISP design
reflected the experiences of COMMON LISP, EULISP, LE LISP, and SCHEME,
and took into account common practices in the Lisp community.  ISLISP is
a small Lisp, but it is designed with extensibility in mind, trying also
to keep compatibility with existing Lisp dialects.  ISO/IEC ISLISP, ANSI
COMMON LISP and ANSI/IEEE SCHEME are co-existing and complementary in the
Lisp community, since they have their own distinctive features in
languages, systems, and applications.

Modula-2 (WG13):
WG13 cooperates with as many compiler writers as possible, and contacts
with industry work quite well.  Where appropriate, WG13 has established
contact with other SC22 working groups. 

PCTE (WG22):
The most active liaisons maintained by WG22 have been with ECMA/TC33,
where most WG22 members are also ECMA/TC33 members, and with ISO/IEC
SC7/WG11.  In the latter case, the WG22 liaison in SC7/WG11 is the
project editor of the subproject dealing with the definition of rules to
derive PCTE Schema Definition Sets from the standard models adopted by
WG11 (basically CDIF models).

POSIX (WG15):
WG15's work is done with close cooperation of The Open Group (TOG, aka
X/Open), Usenix, Europen, and other UNIX organizations.  The bulk of
development for work brought into WG15 has been done in cooperation with
IEEE's Portable Applications Standards Committee.  TOG is a category "C"
liaison, and authorized to submit PAS specifications in areas relevant
to WG15's work.  While most "UNIX" type systems conform to the
specifications from WG15 (POSIX), there is significant competition from
de-facto standards, typically "Windows 95" and "NT".

Prolog (WG17):
WG17 cooperates with the whole Prolog community.  Where appropriate, WG17
has established contact with other SC22 working groups. 

VDM-SL (WG19):
The VDM group involves collaborative work of six participating P-members:
UK, Denmark, Holland, France, Japan and the USA.  The VDM-SL
standardization work was also supported by the EU by various grants.  

Z Notation (WG19):
The work of the Z group involves the participation of members from the
UK, USA, Australia, Japan, Germany, France, Italy, Brazil, Canada, and
Ireland. Members are drawn from industry, government, and universities.
The Z standardization work has been assisted by grants from industrial
and government agencies in the USA and Europe.

2.0   PERIOD REVIEW 
 
2.1  MARKET REQUIREMENTS,  

SC22 standards are produced in response to market requirements covering
extensive and diverse areas of the marketplace.  Traditionally, SC22 has
focused on high level programming environments to improve productivity,
portability of applications, portability of programmers and compatibility
of applications over time.  While press attention is primarily devoted to
newer language and interface areas, it is important not to overlook the
importance of older technologies where there is significant user
investment.  Some of SC22's projects span 25 or more years of application
development and support an inventory of hundreds of millions of lines of
currently operational code.  Adding current technological capab
ilities to older programming languages can extend the life of
applications and provide continued return on investment to current users.
Some specifics on market requirements in particular SC22 areas follow.

Ada:  The most fundamental change in the market has been action by the US
Department of Defense (DOD) to drop its "mandate" of Ada in all military
systems.  The choice of language to be used will now be made by each
individual development program.  Certain segments of the DOD remain
committed to favoring Ada, notably the real-time, embedded systems
community.  In the commercial segment, Ada continues to have a strong
presence in large applications requiring high reliability, such as Air
Traffic Control and railroad safety systems.

APL:  All APL vendors seem to be focusing their efforts on improving user
interface and on bridges to other applications.  For instance, one new
APL product gathers numeric information from various data suppliers,
stores it in multi-dimensional arrays, and then presents it to the user
in useful and coherent formats, in some instances making use of the
methods of time series analysis.  Such a tool is in great demand to those
who follow the stock markets of the world.  This application illustrates
three aspects that APL does best: its handling of arrays, its firm
mathematical foundation, and its amenability to rapid prototype
development.  Issues for users of personal computers include the need for
access to more operating system features and user interface features.
These are being met by the active developers.

The current draft of Extended APL addresses a great many of the market
requirements for APL, but not all of them.  Even as the draft standard
progresses, new requirements are evolving.  With the current trend to
web-based operation, users are beginning to re-configure existing APL
applications as servers integrated with web clients.  Some APL vendors
have already introduced language extensions to support this environment.
Thus, continued evolution of the international standard for APL is
essential to provide the benefits of new technologies and new
environments to APL users worldwide.

C:  The revision to ISO/IEC 9899 is in response to user community
pressure and to implementors concerns to keep current with today's
programming trends and market. The working group believes that evolution
of Object Oriented programming, numerical extensions that were proposed
by the US committee, internationalization, advancements in character set
standardization, cross-language standards and cross-language bindings all
need to be considered in the revised standard.  Most of these issues were not conside
red during the technical discussions for the current ISO C Standard.

C++:  More than one million people are estimated to be programming in
C++.  This marketplace is very eager for the C++ international standard
to be completed.

COBOL:  COBOL continues to be widely used for new development and for
enhancement and re-engineering of existing applications.  Many factors
drive the market for COBOL standardization:
*	Deployment of applications to workstations and distributed
environments and the growth of COBOL in Unix environments has generated
requirements for new features in the language.  These needs have been met
by implementor extensions to the language, in different ways by different
implementors, leading to a need for post-implementation standardization.
*	Market pressure for new technology led COBOL vendors to cooperate
on object-oriented design through the standardization process.  Early
implementations of the object-oriented features in the draft are now
available and users are designing them into new applications.
*	Growth of COBOL in the Unix market led X/Open to develop a Common
Application Environment (CAE) providing a portable definition of features
essential in a Unix environment but lacking in standard COBOL.  The need
for portability with non-Unix platforms 
has resulted in a requirement for inclusion of these features in the
international standard.
*	While business-oriented features are a main-stay of COBOL, the
many services and interfaces in today's environments demand a wider
variety of data types and better interoperation of COBOL with other
languages.
*	Technology advances and resulting spread of computers to end
users makes it mandatory that computer systems adapt to the languages of
users.  This gives rise to a need in COBOL for support of large character
sets and cultural adaptability.
*	The impact of year 2000 date handling generated a requirement for
portable year-2000 features in the draft standard, which are now being
widely implemented.

The current draft revision addresses a great many of the market
requirements for COBOL, but not all of them.  Even as the draft standard
progresses, new requirements are evolving.  With the current trend to
web-based operation, users are beginning to reconfigure existing COBOL
applications as servers integrated with web clients.  COBOL vendors are
starting to introduce language extensions to support this environment.
Thus, continued evolution of the international standard for COBOL is
essential to provide the benefits of new technologies and new environments
to COBOL users worldwide.

Fortran:  Fortran is still the language of choice for the majority of
scientific and technological programming.  There are now signs of growing
use of Fortran 90, and the recent introduction of two commercial subsets
designed for educational use is generating increased interest in Fortran
from the higher education sector.  This growth in interest means that it
is important that the development of the language can react quickly to
market requirements, while still ensuring that the safeguards of full
international review are maintained.  (See Strategies below.)

One perceived market requirement is for a form of conditional compilation
to simplify the transfer of programs between many platforms. This is
being processed as an additional Part of the Fortran Standard, as it is
not currently intended that it should be a requirement for all
Standard-conforming compilers.  It will be submitted for FDIS ballot
later this year and is expected to be sent for publication before the end
of 1998.

Following an exhaustive analysis of requirements for future versions of
Fortran during the period since the publication of Fortran 90, WG5 has
determined the content of the base language for the next revision,
informally known as Fortran 2000, and expects to have the first draft of
this revision available for international ballot by the end of 2000.

Internationalization:  With the proliferation of PCs and the emergence of
the world wide web, internationalization has become a very important
factor in the creation of programs and thus in programming languages.

Language Independent Projects:  The market requirement for these
standards is more indirect than explicit.  Several ISO/IEC standards make
reference to these documents and they are useful in promoting commonality
and interoperability among these standards.

LISP:  The working group has investigated several areas, e.g., modules,
internationalization, graphics,  and binding facilities, and has taken
into consideration several contributions from member bodies.  None had
sufficient maturity for inclusion into the ISLISP standard published this
year.  Some of them, in particular a C language binding, should be
included in a subsequent revision.

Modula-2:  Strong market demands from the Modula-2 community have
resulted in the development of additional parts to the standard.  There
was popular demand for Object Oriented Extensions and we anticipate that
the current development of Part 3 will lead to a uniform way of handling
these extensions in available compilers.  There was popular demand mainly
from academia for Generics which was met with Part 2.  Finally, the
requirement for interfacing to libraries defined in the C language is
being handled by the development of a Type 3 Technical Report.

PCTE:  The PCTE market is a subset of the Repository market.  Today, PCTE
addresses well the problem of providing a standard framework upon which
complete repository products can be built.  Like in many other domains of
the software industry, the approval of a standard at the ISO level is not
sufficient to make it universally adopted.   A major condition for its
acceptance in the industry is the wide availability of implementations
compliant with this standard.  Today this criteria is only partly met;
there are available implementations but they have not yet managed to be
the leading technology on this market.  In fact, there is still no
leading technology as large software vendors seem to still believe in
proprietary solutions in this domain and compete against each other
without adhering to standards.
 
The repository market is relatively small.  There is the same ratio
between the market of databases in general and the market of
repositories, as between the market of end user applications and the
market of software development tools.  The relatively sma
ll size  of this market makes the adoption of PCTE technology grow
slowly. Nevertheless, despite this aspect, the need for repositories is
now fully recognized and most software development organizations are now
convinced  that they need a repository.  PCTE based repository products
are currently used at more than 100 different sites in Europe, America
and Asia (principally Japan).

POSIX:  Conformance to POSIX standards is taken for granted by a wide
variety of private and public sector users for "UNIX" systems
procurement.  All major implementations of "UNIX" claim conformance to
the POSIX standards.

Prolog:  The only market requirement beyond the base standard identified
by the Prolog user community is the definition of a module facility.
This is being developed as Part 2 of the standard.

VDM-SL:  The increase in the need for safety-critical systems will imply
increased interest in formal languages.  Regarding VDM-SL in particular,
requirements have been identified for some sort of modularization and for
addition of an object oriented structure to the language.  In the latter
area, a European group is working in this area and incorporation of this
work may expedite the production of Part 2 of the standard.

Z Notation:  The increasing interest in safety-critical systems and in
secure systems suggests a continuing interest in the use of Z notation.
Industrial users of the Z notation continue to exert pressure for a
standard and are contributing participants to the development work.

2.2  ACHIEVEMENTS
 
*	Ada:  Final approval of DIS 13813 and DIS 13814 on Ada packages
              and final text sent to ITTF for publication;
*	Ada:  Approval of FCD 15291 on the Ada Semantic Interface
              Specification;
*	APL:  Approval of DIS 13751 ballot on Extended APL;
*	C:    Circulation of a CD ballot on the revision to IS 9899 on C;
*	C++:  Comments on FCD 14882 on C++ resolved; FDIS 14882 sent to
              ITTF for ballot;
*	Fortran:  Publication of the latest revision to the base language
                  standard, ISO/IEC 1539-1:1997;
*	Fortran:  Approval of FCD 1539-3 ballot on Fortran Part 3,
                  Conditional Compilation in Fortran;
*	Fortran:  Approval of DTR 15580, Type 2 Technical Report on
                  Floating Point Exception Handling in Fortran;
*	Fortran:  Approval of DTR 15581, Type 2 Technical Report on
                  Enhanced Data Type Facilities in Fortran;
*	Fortran:  Approval of DTR 15815, Type 2 Technical Report on
                  Interoperability between Fortran and C, but with
                  substantial negative comments;
*	Internationalization:  Circulation of Final CD 14651 ballot on
                  International String Ordering;
*	Internationalization:  Registration and completion of First CD
                  14652 ballot on Specification of Cultural
                  Conventions, and circulation of the Final CD ballot;
*	Internationalization:  TR 10176 ballot completed on a revision to
                  Guidelines for the Preparation of Programming
                  Language Standards, adding internationalization issues
                  to the TR; final text sent to ITTF for publication;
*	Language Independent:  Circulation of a registration ballot on
                  Guidelines for Language Independent Service
                  Specifications; ballot closes June 30.
*	Modula-2:  Final approval of IS 10514 Part 2, Generics in
                   Modula-2 and final text sent to ITTF for publication;
*	Modula-2:  Final approval of IS 10514 Part 3, Object-oriented
                   Modula-2, and final text sent to ITTF for
                   publication;
*	M[UMPS]:  Approval of a fast-track ballot (submitted by the US
                  National Body) for revision of IS 11756 on M[UMPS];
*	M[UMPS]:  Approval of fast-track DIS 15851 ballot for Open MUMPS
                  Interconnect;
*	M[UMPS]:  Approval of fast-track DIS 15852 ballot for M Windowing
                  API;
*	PCTE:   Completion of work on all four parts of IS 13719 on PCTE,
                including production of a new edition incorporating all
                amendments and corrections;
*	POSIX:  Circulation of ballot on PDAM 5 to POSIX Part 1, IS
                9945-1, with extensions to the base standard;
*	POSIX:  Completion of ballot on DAM 4 to POSIX Part 1, IS 9945-1,   
                on Protocol Independent Interfaces;
*	POSIX:  Completion of DIS ballot on Part 3 to IS 15068, POSIX
                System Administration: User & Group Account Management;
*	POSIX:  Circulation of PDAM 1 to IS 14515-1 on Realtime
                Extensions to the POSIX System Interface Test Methods;
*	POSIX:  Circulation of FDISP ballot on POSIX Real Time
                Application Support Profile;

2.3  RESOURCES  
  
It is increasingly difficult for standards participants to obtain the
necessary funding for standards development activities.  Nonetheless, all
currently active SC22 projects continue to have sufficient support.

3.0  FOCUS NEXT WORK PERIOD  

3.1  DELIVERABLES: 

*	Ada:  Circulation and approval of FDIS 15291 ballot on Ada
              Semantic Interface Specification;
*	Ada:  Registration of a draft for PDTR 15942 on Guidance for the
              Use of Ada in High Integrity Systems;
*	APL:  Forwarding of final text for publication of IS 13751 on
              Extended APL;
*	APL:  Circulation of PDAM Registration ballots on Character
              Repertoire amendments to IS 8485 on APL and DIS 13751 on
              Extended APL;
*	C:  Resolution of comments on the CD ballot on the revision to IS
            9899 on C and circulation of an FCD ballot;
*	C++:  Conclusion of FDIS 14882 ballot and forwarding of final
              text for publication ;
*	Fortran:  FCD ballot on revision to IS 1539-2, Fortran Part 2,
                  Varying Length Character String Module;
*	Fortran:  Circulation of FDIS 1539-3 ballot on Fortran Part 3,
                  Conditional Compilation in Fortran and forwarding of
                  final text for publication;
*	Fortran:  Forwarding of final text for publication of TR 15580,
                  Type 2 Technical Report on Floating Point Exception
                  Handling in Fortran;
*	Fortran:  Forwarding of final text for publication of TR 15581,
                  Type 2 Technical Report on Enhanced Data Type Facilities
                  in Fortran;
*	Internationalization:  Resolution of comments on Final CD 14651
                  ballot on International String Ordering and
                  determination of need for another FCD ballot;
*	Internationalization:  Resolution of comments on FCD 14652 ballot
                  on Specification of Cultural Conventions and
                  determination of need for another FCD ballot;
*	Language Independent:  Circulation of another FCD ballot on Part
                  2 of IS 10967 on Language Independent Arithmetic:
                  Elementary Numerical Functions;
*	Language Independent:  Circulation of a PDTR ballot on Guidelines
                  for Language Independent Service Specifications; 
*	M[UMPS]:  Forwarding of final text for publication of revision of
                  IS 11756 on M[UMPS];
*	M[UMPS]:  Forwarding of final text for publication of IS 15851
                  ballot for Open MUMPS Interconnect;
*	M[UMPS]:  Forwarding of final text for publication of IS 15852
                  ballot for M Windowing API;
*	POSIX:  Circulation of ballot on PDAM 8 to POSIX Part 1, IS
                9945-1, for realtime extensions;
*	POSIX:  Forwarding of final text for publication of AM 4 to POSIX
                Part 1, IS 9945-1,  on Protocol Independent Interfaces;
*	POSIX:  Circulation of PDAM 2 ballot on additional utilities for
                IS 9945-2, Shell and Utilities for POSIX;
*	POSIX:  Forwarding of final text for publication of Part 3 to IS
                15068, POSIX System Administration: User & Group Account
                Management;
*	POSIX:  Circulation of CD ballot on Part 4 to IS 15068 POSIX
                System Administration: Printing Interfaces;
*	POSIX:  Circulation of FDIS ballot for revision of IS 13210 on
                Requirements and Guidelines for Test Methods
                Specifications and Test Method Implementations for
                Measuring Conformance to POSIX Standards;
*	POSIX:  Circulation of FDISP ballot on POSIX Supercomputing
                Applications Environment Profile;
*	Prolog:  Circulation of Final CD Ballot on Part 2 of IS 13211 on
                 Prolog;
*	Z Notation:  Circulation of a revised CD 13568 ballot on Z
                 Notation.
	
3.2  STRATEGIES: 
 
An important SC22 strategy is to use a variety of development methods in
order to produce timely standards and make the most efficient use of
standards development resources.  SC22 has used the following methods:
*	 Assignment of development responsibility to a National Body with
         a strong development committee, with a requirement for
         appropriate synchronization of the international and national
         comment processes so that all comments are appropriately
         considered in the production of the standard;
*	 Joint or co-located meetings of SC22 WGs with NB or liaison
         organization development committees working in the same area, to
         produce standards with identical text;
*	 Invitation to NB or liaison organizations to fast-track
         documents in the area of SC22 responsibility;
*	 Development within traditional working groups.

The SC22 Working Group on Fortran is implementing a strategy allowing it
to react effectively to new requirements without causing unacceptable
delay to the processing of the main Standard.  Certain high priority new
features which were too late to be included in the last revision are
being processed as Type 2 Technical Reports, with a guarantee that the
feature will be incorporated unaltered in the next revision of the base
Standard unless experience in implementation or use shows that a
modification is necessary.  The intent of this procedure is to encourage
implementors to add these features to their compilers without waiting for
the next revision of the main language Standard.  Two such TRs are about 
to be submitted for their final DTR approval ballots, while a third is
currently in the process of being balloted for PDTR approval.

  3.2.1   RISKS  
 
The risks associated with all the above methods are:
*	Continuing commitment of participants and their sponsors
        throughout the development process, especially in a time of
        organizational downsizing.  SC22 views this as a consequence of a
        lack of recognition of the value of international standards
        production and participation;
*	Continuing commitment of sufficient National Bodies where the
        development work is done within WGs.  This risk is significantly 
        reduced when development is done outside a WG;
*       Dependence on other organizations for technical expertise,
        development work, and project editing when development is done
        outside a WG;
*	Obtaining consensus when conflicting implementations have been
        produced prior to the development of the standard.

In addition, we share a risk with other elements of JTC1 that purchasing
patterns of customers are reducing the requirement for conformance to
relevant international standards as a criteria for selection.  This
appears to be true in both the private and public sectors.  Decreased
perception of relevance by customers can result in decreased
participation in the standards process by users which, in turn, further
increases the risk of diverging from real market requirements.  

  3.2.2   OPPORTUNITIES 
 
Content:  Three market factors are particularly relevant to the future
direction of SC22's work program:
1.	The evolution of the marketplace from a national basis to one
        where software can be developed anywhere in the world for use
        globally;
2.	The development of a viable application environment for
        network-based computing;
3.	Our potential ability to provide higher quality, more easily
        applied standards based upon our cumulative experience.

Process:  Extensive use of electronic distribution techniques provides an
opportunity to speed up the development process and reduce the
requirement for as many meetings that add considerable expense to
standards development participation.

3.3  WORK PROGRAM PRIORITIES  
  
1.	Support the current, massive, global investment in software
        applications by maintenance and improvement of standardized
        programming languages;
2.	Respond to emerging technological opportunities such as network
        applications and global development practices;
3.	Continuously improve programming environment standardization
        through the documentation and application of forty years of
        lessons learned in the specification of these standards.

___________________- end of SC22 N2711 ________________________