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- Submitted-by: pc@hillside.co.uk (Peter Collinson)
-
- John Hill <hill@prc.unisys.com> reports on U.S. Standards Technical
- Advisory Groups
-
-
- Standards, like automobiles, come in several sizes, shapes, and colors
- suitable to the use to which they will be put. With cars there are
- options for just about everything; from appearance, to utility, to
- emissions control. Not only that, cars are also sold with features
- specifically accommodating the place in which they are to be used. If
- you don't have a strong grasp of what that means then try driving your
- '61 Ford Fairlane down any London street during crush hour. Your car
- won't fit, it's too wide. Its outside mirrors aren't a breakaway
- type, so you are dangerous to pedestrians. Not to mention that you
- steer on the wrong side of the car for the side of the street on which
- you are driving. In London cars have features to accommodate their
- situation. Just like your '61 Fairlane fits local US requirements in
- the early sixties.
-
- What does this have to do with standards? A lot. The analogy helps
- highlight some of the problems of developing worldwide standards.
- Driving and cars provide interesting examples. It would be helpful if
- it were simpler to drive in foreign places without being a hazard to
- the local inhabitants, as well as to one's self. What's more, it
- would be convenient to have the same situation, in terms of driving
- conditions and cars, presented all over the world. But, in the UK
- there are unique local requirements for cars, just as there are in all
- other nations of the world.
-
- Consider the situation. In countries the world over, the local people
- know their driving conditions better than anyone and from them can
- determine the requirements for a suitable car. After all, they face
- the situation every day. But conditions differ from country to
- country. This places different requirements on the cars to be
- operated in each country. From a producer perspective, this results in
- different product variants to accommodate each country in which the
- product is used. From a world user perspective, this results in
- inconvenience during use. (It does however, simplify the matter of
- determining where you are. All you have to do is look at the car
- you're driving.) From a general interest perspective, it is confusing
- at best and baffling at its worst.
-
- Information technology exhibits many of the same properties as cars.
- In the case of telecommunications, there truly are a multitude of
- factors which take on local values. One trivial example is the
- assignment of characters to numbers on the telephone keypad. A
- tougher problem is the variability in the quality of phone line
- service across the broad spectrum of transmission rates. Please
- recognize that these examples are objective, deterministic and based on
- universally accepted physical laws and phenomena. Software is, well,
- softer. In any event, there is great interest in having a single
- worldwide standard wherever feasible.
-
- Standards bodies
-
- Enter IEC, CCITT and ISO. These are the organizations which develop
- formal worldwide standards. Their names are actually French and won't
- be cited here. It is useful to recognize that, as a general
- characterization of their scopes, they handle electrotechnical (e.g.
- safety, EMI), telecommunications (e.g. ISDN) and everything else (e.g.
- food storage, mechanical contraceptive devices, fuels and lubricants)
- respectively. Development of standards for information technology
- spans the traditional boundaries of both ISO and IEC and, as such, is
- managed jointly by both ISO and IEC in Joint Technical Committee 1
- (JTC1).
-
- The membership of ISO, IEC, CCITT and JTC1 is at a higher level than
- organizations. CCITT is a treaty organization; the U.S. is
- represented by the Department of State. ANSI represents the U.S. as
- the member body in ISO, the national committee in IEC, and the
- national body in JTC1. AFNOR, BSI, SIS, DIN and ON, as examples, are
- the national body representatives of France, the UK, Sweden, Germany
- and Austria respectively. Other standards bodies participate in a
- limited manner. The most visible of these is the regional standards
- developer, the European Computer Manufacturers' Association (ECMA).
-
- If one were to examine the scope of technical activity of JTC1, the
- unavoidable conclusion is that it's broad and deep. Not only does it
- cover a lot of ground (media to programming languages) but also in
- excruciating detail. It is unrealistic to expect that a single
- organization can develop and promote a national body position in all
- the JTC1 technical activities. In the U.S., the concept of Technical
- Advisory Group (TAG) was put forward to handle this.
-
- Tags
-
- TAGs are enabled by ANSI to develop the U.S. position on a limited set
- of items for specifically identified JTC1 activities. What's that
- mean? Essentially, that ANSI assigns to individual standards bodies
- the responsibility of handling U.S. technical interest for specific
- international standards activities.
-
- Most of the time the enabling of specific organizations to act as a
- TAG for an international standards development effort is simple and
- not controversial. Individual programming languages, developed in
- working groups of JTC1 subcommittees, are typically simple. For
- example, there is only one U.S. group developing standards for POSIX,
- IEEE's P1003, and one for COBOL, X3's technical committee, X3J4. As a
- result, the identification of the TAG for those working groups is
- straight forward.
-
- Sometimes the assignment of TAG responsibility is not so easy. Take
- the example of JTC1's subcommittee on languages, SC22. There are
- several U.S. standards development organizations which make-up the TAG
- to SC22. The IEEE has POSIX and Modula-2; CODASYL has FIMS; the
- Department of Defense has Ada; and X3 has a multitude of others.
- Within X3, a subgroup manages the issues that overlap those TAGs or
- that do not fall within the activities of any of them.
-
- As a sidelight allow me to point out that the U.S. even needs a TAG to
- JTC1 itself.
-
- Let's regroup for a moment. There are TAGs in the U.S. for all levels
- of ISO, IEC, CCITT and JTC1 in which the U.S. has an interest. Using
- JTC1 as a representative example, this means there are TAGs with
- responsibility for JTC1 itself, for the JTC1 subcommittees, for the
- JTC1 special working groups, for the JTC1 technical subcommittees, and
- for the working groups of each JTC1 technical subcommittee in which
- the U.S. is interested. If there is activity anywhere within JTC1
- that is of interest to the U.S., there is a TAG. Someone has to do
- the work.
-
- Work of TAGS
-
- A logical question now is "What are these TAGs empowered to do?"
- Simple question, but a complex answer. There are, however some rules
- of thumb to help out.
-
- - the more important the decision, the higher the U.S. consensus
- that is required
-
- - the more detailed and technical the subject, the higher the
- weight given to the opinions of technical experts
-
- Some examples are useful. One action JTC1 places a heavy value on is
- the final approval of standards. As a result, JTC1 rules require that
- a ballot be taken of its members (remember them, they're the
- representative national standards organizations) for adopting a
- document as a worldwide standard. Similarly, JTC1 members must vote to
- approve new work items. One way to think of this is that JTC1 makes
- decisions that affect the beginning (i.e. approval of new work items)
- and ending (i.e. final approval) for standards. JTC1 also makes all
- decisions involving the establishment and dissolution of its immediate
- subgroups.
-
- JTC1 TAG establishes the U.S. positions on matters such as new work
- items and final approval of standards.
-
- Let us examine a lower level, technical decision of JTC1. If we apply
- the second rule from above, we will conclude that the decisions at
- this level are delegated to the working group (of the technical
- subcommittee of JTC1). One such decision is the determination of what
- text should be contained in a draft standard. It doesn't get much more
- detailed or technical than that. The working group determines that.
- All by themselves.
-
- There is a whole world of grey between the two examples cited above.
- Typically the decisions revolve around ``recommendations to forward''
- documents in various stages of completion for consideration or
- approval by higher authority committees. A complete description of the
- decisions and recommendations is not really appropriate for this
- article. However, if you're interested allow me to point you to two
- companion documents.
-
- - the JTC1 directives (available from ANSI)
-
- - the JTC1 TAG technical document 1 (available from CBEMA)
-
- They are in the form of procedures but for ease of use have
- comprehensive indices.
-
- There are a few messages for you to carry away.
-
- - TAGs are empowered by ANSI
-
- - TAGs represent the U.S.
-
- - there are TAGs for every worldwide standards activity that is of
- interest to the U.S.
-
- - the more important the decision, the higher the need for national
- body consensus; the more technical the decision, the lower the
- need for national body consensus
-
- This has been a brief exposure of technical advisory groups in the
- U.S.. As you have observed, the subject is complicated. The best way
- to understand them is to join one that is in your particular area of
- interest and expertise. Rather than fuss and fret about the problems
- you see with them, it is recommended that you become a part of the
- solution.
-
-
- Volume-Number: Volume 27, Number 11
-
-