Subject: HOD-C ideas on reengineering

From: Steve Carson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 11:05:25 -0600

This document records the discussions that we had in Kista during HOD-C and
other forums regarding JTC 1 reengineering and the future of SC 24.  It is
a collection of text that is circulated so that SC 24 National Bodies may
extract portions of interest for use within their own countries when
preparing positions for their JTC 1 counterpart organizations.  This
material may be part of a future contribution from SC 24 to JTC 1 or it’s
reengineering ad hoc.

The Value of ISO/IEC Standards

We believe that both JTC 1 and organizations outside of JTC 1 have
appropriate roles to play in the development of standards.  The
subcommittees of JTC 1 are not the only place to either initiate work on
new standards or to evolve existing standards.  For this reason SC 24 and
other subcommittees of JTC 1 have long worked with outside organizations,
including those open, consensus-based Consortia and similar organizations
where all individuals and organizations with an interest can freely
participate on an equal basis.  

SC24 (as well as other subcommittees) have extensive experience in
transposing specifications created outside JTC 1 into International
Standards.  Our experience has shown that these initial submissions,
without exception, fall short of the quality that the global community
demands of an International Standard.  These shortcomings go well beyond
the obvious ones of formatting, style and spelling.  The specification must
also have characteristics such as completeness, consistency, and
correctness that allow multiple, independent, inter-operable implementation
to be built from just the specification.  Determining whether a
specification has these characteristics is not a management decision that
can be taken at the technical committee level, but rather a technical one
that must be made at the subcommittee level.

Producing high quality specifications has always taken time.  This is
especially true of building consensus at the working group and subcommittee
level.  It is tempting to seek a short-cut methods of creating
International Standards, such as the Fast track and PAS processes developed
by JTC 1.  Even though these processes may provide a quicker way to get an
initial submission than developing it from scratch within a working group,
deciding that a submitted specification has the necessary characteristics
still requires review by technical experts.

The main value that JTC 1 contributes to the global information technology
community derives from the expertise of the thousands of technical experts
who actively contribute at the working group and subcommittee level. It is
the talent of these contributors that has consistently transformed initial
submissions into high quality International Standards.  If lower quality
specifications are allowed to become "International Standards" by paths
other than the traditional multi-step process followed by JTC 1's
subcommittees, then the excellent reputation that ISO and IEC standards
enjoy for high quality will quickly be destroyed.  Therefore, JTC 1 must
maintain a cadre of world class technical experts in each field of
information technology in which it wishes to create standards, and must
require that these experts pass technical judgment on all submitted
specifications.

SC24 has recently enjoyed success working with outside organizations to
transpose work that was essentially complete into International Standards
with minimal change. Unfortunately, we have found that the limited scope
for technical contribution has meant that only the most senior technical
experts are willing or even able to be involved in what are only the final,
principally editorial, stages in the development of such standards.  Those
at earlier stages in their careers must work in the early and highly
innovative stages of development, at least in part so they can get the
publications in refereed journals that are required for career advancement.
Further, a substantial number of experts, particularly in Europe, are
recruited from research organizations and public institutions. The
participation of these experts in standards making is tenable only if such
activities are relevant to the mission of these organizations.

The ability of subcommittees such as SC24 to recruit and train technical
experts is dependent on their ability to get their experts involved in the
work at the creative stage where they can contribute innovative and new
ideas.  SC24 has experienced a significant drop in participation over the
last several years due to precisely this shift of the early work into
outside organizations such as Consortia.  The subcommittee will not remain
viable much longer unless it can attract and retain new experts at an early
stage in their careers.  If subcommittees such as SC24 disappear, JTC 1
will have no pool of experts who can do the technical and editorial work
that we know is required to create International Standards of acceptable
quality.  Once this happens the entire future of global information
technology standardization will be in jeopardy. 

How Should JTC 1 Select Projects

If we approve standards projects based only on their perceived short-terms
payoff, many of the most worthwhile projects might never have been started.
 It is instructive to look at several specific examples.  The use of
International Standard character sets rather than proprietary ones took a
long time to become widely implemented in products.  Today their use is
commonplace.  The Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) was used
mostly in only small, niche markets for many years until its use by the WWW
community in HTML catapulted it to greater attention.  The Computer
Graphics Metafile (CGM) was little used in 1986 when it first became an
international standard, but is enjoying rapidly growing adoption in
vertical markets today where there is a need for a device, system and
resolution independent format.  The lesson to be learned from these
examples is there must be a balance between urgently needed projects with
short-term payoff and those required to build markets in the longer term.
The ability to stand back and take this longer term view is one value of
International Standards.

Another fact that we must consider is that the value from International
Standard projects is not solely from the economic value of its products
(the standards themselves.)  The side effects of carrying out an
international project are often of considerable importance.  Primary among
these are the educational benefits.  Within the SC24 computer graphics
community the development of the GKS and later the PHIGS standards
illustrates these benefits well.  These projects led to a common world-wide
understanding of computer graphics concepts and terminology to a far
greater depth than could be achieved by other means, such as the
interaction of experts at meetings of professional societies or at
conferences. When a group of experts from diverse backgrounds works
together over many years to create a standard, they are forced to develop a
much deeper understanding that can be achieved by more casual types of
interaction.  In computer graphics, the concepts of GKS and later PHIGS
have been used to train the generation of technologists who have gone on to
make computer graphics an intrinsic part of all of our lives today.  This
training has also enabled several countries which had not previously
participated in the international computer graphics market in a major way
to now become world leaders in aspects of the technology.

The Way We Develop Standards

One of the reasons that so much early stage the development of new
standards is accomplished within Consortia today is that Consortia are free
to utilize innovative methods of working, including Internet based
electronic communications.  While JTC 1 has encouraged its
sub-organizations to utilize electronic means to do their work, the key
decisions still must be taken by formal ballots with time frames (3 to 4
months) that can be viewed as excessive by today’s standards.  The recent
experience of the VRML community has shown that consensus can be achieved
in shorter times if reasonable practices are followed.  If the
subcommittees and working groups of JTC 1 are to be competitive as
developers of future standards, the JTC 1 directives must be revised to
allow subcommittees and working groups more flexibility in establishing the
most appropriate procedures for developing consensus on a particular project. 

A major reason that both information technology providers and users of
information technology often choose a specification from a Consortium or a
single commercial organization over an ISO/IEC standard is that the former
specifications can usually be obtained quickly at no cost over the
Internet.  For this reason, International Standards are often not
competitive with other specifications.  To ameliorate this situation, the
International Standards in the field of information technology developed by
JTC 1 should be accessible freely through the Internet.  This free
accessibility should extend to pre-standard documents such as Working
Drafts, Committee Drafts, and Draft International Standards.

Since so much standards development work is now done in partnership with
organizations outside of JTC 1, it is important that both sides realize
that the goals of interoperability and consensus can only be achieved by
cooperating in an open manner. From the JTC 1 side this means taking a
relaxed and flexible view of the specifications that might appear as
normative references within a standard, as well as being cautious about
demanding compatibility with established International Standards,
especially ones that might not have wide marketplace acceptance, or whose
features are not required for interoperability with the installed base of
commercial products.  From the Consortia side this means considering
alternative approaches based on the experience of ISO and IEC experts,
especially in the area of internationalization. Decisions on issues be made
on both the technical merits of a proposal, and on other considerations
including interoperability. Often both sides can adopt a phased approach to
change whereby a specification is scheduled to evolve over time rather than
making all desired changes at once.

Balanced Interests

In the rush to reengineer JTC1, we must not forget that ISO and IEC have
the responsibility to balance the interests of a diverse set of interests
in the development of International Standards.  The perceived short-term
interests of the producers of information technology, while just one of
these interests, is the main one driving JTC 1 reengineering.  While the
full list of other interests is too large to discuss here, it is again
instructive to look at several examples.

Larger producers of information technology can make sure that their voice
is heard due to the size of their staffs and the amount of money that they
can spend.  These organizations have always sought to preserve their
current market share by controlling how standards are developed.  Small and
innovative organizations, both for-profit companies and research
institutes, are greatly under-represented above the subcommittee level
within ISO and IEC.  Yet most innovations come from these smaller
organizations and it is mostly their growth that fuels the global
information technology economy.  It is easy to see why the larger producers
want to lock them out of global markets by denying them an equal right to
contribute to the development of International Standards.

Another minority interest is that of constituencies that are disadvantaged
in some way.  ISO and IEC have a special responsibility to insure that
their interests are fairly considered.  Among these are a variety of small
constituencies with unique language or cultural requirements that products
based on International Standards should support even though each unique
requirement may not itself be economically feasible to meet.

Conclusion

We must strive for a global information technology standardization
community where all interested parties are free to contribute and where
their views are considered on an equal basis. There is a price that we must
pay to meet this goal and insure that no one is left behind in our rush to
develop standards in a more timely and responsive manner.  One of the
prices that we must pay is insuring that technical experts at the working
group and subcommittee level can still make meaningful and innovative
contributions to International Standards.

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Steve Carson                 phone:   +1-505-521-7399
GSC Associates Inc.          fax:     +1-505-521-9321
5272 Redman Road             e-mail:  [email-masked]
Las Cruces, NM 88011 USA
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