TITLE: | SC34 Liaison Report to SWG Directives |
SOURCE: | Mr. Keld Jørn Simonsen |
STATUS: | Liaison statement |
ACTION: | SC34 Secretariat to forward to JTC1 Secretariat |
DATE: | 2006-05-31 |
DISTRIBUTION: | SC34 and Liaisons |
REPLY TO: |
Dr. James David Mason (ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 34 Secretariat - Standards Council of Canada) Crane Softwrights Ltd. Box 266, Kars, ON K0A-2E0 CANADA Telephone: +1 613 489-0999 Facsimile: +1 613 489-0995 Network: [email protected] http://www.jtc1sc34.org |
1.1 The maintenance process where the standard is maintained by the originating organisation may result in slightly different versions of the fast-tracked standard and the ISO standard. Sometimes the changes introduced into the ISO standard are then introduced in the standard of originating body and reballotted there. But having two slightly different standards may confuse the marketplace and implementors, and it would be better if ISO comments could be introduced earlier en the process such that only one version would result.
1.2 When a revision first needs to be ballotted in the originating body and then in ISO gives a delay in the appearance of the ISO standard, that is inconvenient if JTC 1 wans to produce timely standards. The delay could be in the order of one year.
1.3 It is not easy to get national experts to participate in the revision process, and maintain the expertise in ISO. Some national body comments may be difficult for the originating body to accomodate, as the specification may already be the result of a delicate decision process.
One solution illustrated by the arrangement around ISO/IEC 9945 POSIX standard would be joint maintenance by the participating organizations by parallel processing respecting the individual procedures of the partipating bodies, and the participating bodies having colocated meetings, as described in SC34 N0587. The SWG is asked to consider this together with other possible solutions for the revision of the Directives.
The Directives indicate the comments shall be resolved by the ITTF and the JTC 1 secretariat, but this may be difficult and the national bodies and the designated project editor should probably be involved.
JTC 1 Directives Section H4.1 Document Formats should include the following formats in the list of acceptable document formats.
There are no mechanisms by which National Bodies can validate that organizations claiming conformance to the JTC1 standards are actually conforming. SC34 feels that it should be a requirement for all PAS and fast-track submitters to provide National Bodies with conformance procedures. Where standards, such as DIS 26300, only require conformance to parts of the standard, there should be clearly documented boundaries, at a high level in the document structure, to which conformance can be claimed.