Usenet 1994 January/usenetsourcesnewsgroupsinfomagicjanuary1994.iso/sources/std_unix/volume.27/text0010.txt

Text File | 1992-05-20 | 9.3 KB | 196 lines

Submitted-by: [e-mail] (Peter Collinson)

John Hill <[e-mail]> 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