Subject: News Flash: SC24 survives reengineering!

From: Steve Carson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 1997 22:03:27 -0600

The JTC 1 Reengineering ad hoc on 20 June 1997 issued document ISO/IEC JTC
1 N4775 for a 60 day JTC 1 ballot. The title of this document is JTC 1
Technical Directions, Organizational Structure and Modes of Operation.
Please keep in mind that this is still only a proposal subject to JTC 1
letter ballot and then resolution of comments at the September JTC 1
meeting in Ottawa.

To summarize the key points in a rather long document:

1) JTC 1’s reengineering has identified Technical Directions which they
believe are of strategic market relevance.

2) Technical Directions are viewed by JTC 1 as an opportunity to better
convey to "the world" the work in which we are engaged.  

3) The Technical Directions will encourage cross SC collaboration and
enable a more flexible organizational structure.

4) Some Technical Directions will operate as a single SC and some will
consist of multiple SCs. It is proposed that SC29 and SC24 fall into the
later category. That is the one called "Method B" by the ad hoc, where
members of the Technical Direction will:  

  a) operate as separate SCs within a common Technical Direction
  b) encourage dialogue between the grouped SCs 
  c) use the existing tools for collaboration
  d) feel free to meet independently
  e) action the SC chairs to provide joint reports (such as business plans,
plenary reports, etc.)
  f) Note:  SCs within a Technical Direction operating under Method B are
encouraged to move towards operations under Method A

5) It looks as if the ad hoc largely accepted our comments regarding a
technical direction that we fit in to and re-wrote their previous proposal
to fit SC29's scope into SC24's scope rather than the converse. Here is the
resulting Technical Direction:

Multimedia & Representation

Presentation of, interchange of, and interaction with information, including:
- computer graphics;
- multimedia, including coding of hypermedia and multimedia and coded
representation of picture and audio information;
- image processing; and
- interactive techniques.

In a subsequent message will send out the actual, full JTC 1 document N4775.

Please look the full document over and then lets have some discussion about
whether or not we support the recommendation and what actions if any we
should ask SC 24 NBs to take with their JTC 1 counterparts to influence
their voting on the ad-hoc's recommendations. 

Steve Carson
Chair, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 24
Computer Graphics and Image Processing
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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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