[dsdl-discuss] Re: FW: extensions jtc1 sc 34

Ken

Its a pity that ISO central secretariat fails to read the reports WG1 so
labouriously completes at each meeting. SC34 N0751 gives a clear status
report on all parts under threat by ISO, showing the current state of
progress in all parts of our work. OK, we have been slower than originally
anticipated, but unlike other committees we are delivering tested standards
with accompanying software, all as part of our purely voluntary effort. If
ISO want to rush us we can return to the old model of publish first, develop
later and then issue amendments, a la ISO 8879.

I have already chased all ISO 19757 editors for new editions twice in the
last two months. We have issued an FDIS ballot for Part 8 in the last couple
of weeks.

Part 5 is ready to go to FDIS, but we are struggling to make the text
written by our excellent volunteer developer, Jeni Tennison, fit the
restrictive ISO formatting rules. We would be only to happy to publish a
draft in a reviewable, non-ISO conformant, form if that would help allay
ISO's fears. This draft has already been made available online for peer
review, but has not been deemed suitable for submission to national
standards bodies.

Part 7 has been waiting for the editor to complete work on Part 4. The
success of Part 4, and the need to promote it worldwide, not least as part
of the ongoing fast-track activity on OOXML, has delayed the completion of
this part somewhat, but the basic design has been mapped out and agreed, and
again it is getting ISO-conformant text that is the problem.

Part 9 is almost complete, having been reviewed by the user community over
the summer, and is waiting for the editor to find time in his busy schedule
to complete the last section of text.

Part 10 is awaiting completion of a new W3C standard, which is going ahead
at pace and will hopefully be ready for review for suitability for inclusion
in ISO 19757 sometime next year. A revised draft of this proposal,
http://www.w3.org/TR/xproc/ issued in September 2006, will be reviewed by
the working group when it next meets.

Part 6 has always been an issue, as Part 3 took on many of the roles
originally envisaged for Part 6. There are still, however, some requirements
not covered by Part 3 which we continue to review to see if proposals to
W3C, OASIS, etc, might meet these requirements.

We continue to produce high-quality standards that meet users needs, albeit
at a slower pace than we like because none of us has sufficient financial
support from our national bodies or large companies to make it possible to
develop standards as part of our day jobs, all having to give up our very
limited spare time to meet ISO's exacting schedules.

Martin Bryan
Convenor, SC34 WG1

----- Original Message -----
From: "G. Ken Holman - ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 34 Secretariat Manager"
<jtc1sc34@scc.ca>
To: "James D. Mason" <masonjd@y12.doe.gov>; "Martin Bryan"
<martin@is-thought.co.uk>; "Yushi Komachi" <komachi@y-adagio.com>; "Steve
Pepper" <pepper@ontopia.net>
Sent: Monday, October 30, 2006 4:25 PM
Subject: Re: FW: extensions jtc1 sc 34

> Okay, I've just received a telephone call from Keith Brannon at ISO.
>
> Essentially, we have not been following our "commitments" to
> development timeframes from the NWI stage to the DIS stage.
>
> ISO gets pressure (he cited BSI as one of the examples) from member
> countries asking "why isn't this work completed?" and so ISO holds
> committees to their project schedules.
>
> What we need to do immediately is to "respond in black and white"
> regarding these three sets of projects as to why they exceed their
> development targets. I mentioned the dependencies in multi-part
> standards ... he said "fine, but tell me why".
>
> So ... to avoid this in the future ... I'm thinking that we should
> flesh out the project development status information in the
> secretariat report and in the list of resolutions at our plenary sessions.
>
> And I think we should convey to our project volunteers that, even
> though these are volunteer efforts, we need to progress our work in a
> timely fashion or SC34 will be regarded as insensitive to its
> commitments to develop standards in a timely fashion.
>
> And I *really* want to avoid phone calls like the one I just had.
>
> I think Steve (13250-5 and 18048) and Martin (19757) have the
> immediate task of writing up in text that I can forward to Keith to
> justify continuing these projects.
>
> And I think we should review *all* of the projects, and their
> timelines, with our committee members to understand what our obligations
are.
>
> Thanks!
>
> . . . . . . . . . . . . Ken
>
> At 2006-10-30 08:59 -0500, I wrote:
> >Good morning, Keith,
> >
> >I have copied the chair and the working group conveners so they are
> >aware of your concerns.
> >
> >At 2006-10-30 10:51 +0100, Brannon wrote:
> >>I have the following projects under the knife could you please tell
> >>me the reasons for extending these projects ? .
> >
> >Because our committee is still working on them ... what more reason
> >do you need?
> >
> >> ISO/IEC 13250-5
> >>18048
> >>19757 PARTS 5,6,7,8,9 and 10
> >
> >The committee has reaffirmed the existence of each of these projects
> >at our plenary sessions, and the continuing status of these is
> >maintained in our real-time updated secretariat report.
> >
> >The status of a number of the above specifications has changed
> >recently as work progresses.
> >
> >I understood the standards publication process to support the
> >development process of those standards, and not "the tail wagging
> >the dog" in the other direction. The development on all of our
> >projects proceeds with various dependencies and various levels of
> >progress as parts get completed which direct other parts, and as the
> >committee members bring the level of maturity of a specification to
> >a state that warrants progress to a new state and feedback from the
community.
> >
> >Please don't cancel any of those projects on procedural grounds ...
> >if we find that a planned project does not have the legs for
> >completion, we will gladly take it off our plate and inform you of
> >its cancellation. The last we checked, all of the projects still at
> >this point have relevance.
> >
> >The members of SC 34 take seriously the desire to progress the
> >standardization process quickly, but not at the expense of producing
> >inferior work products attributed to the hard efforts of its members.
> >
> >. . . . . . . . . . . . Ken
>
> --
>
> G. Ken Holman Crane Softwrights Ltd.
> ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 34 Secretariat Standards Council of Canada
> Committee correspondence: mailto:jtc1sc34@scc.ca
> Committee website: http://www.jtc1sc34.org
> Corporate correspondence: mailto:gkholman@CraneSoftwrights.com
> Corporate website: http://www.CraneSoftwrights.com/a/
>
>

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