Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!dino!uxc.cso.uiuc.edu!uxc.cso.uiuc.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!uxe.cso.uiuc.edu!mcdonald
From: mcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: Fortran 8x: ISO compatibilty
Message-ID: <50500144@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 15 Jul 89 23:03:17 GMT
References: <2816@elxsi.UUCP>
Lines: 15
Nf-ID: #R:elxsi.UUCP:2816:uxe.cso.uiuc.edu:50500144:000:822
Nf-From: uxe.cso.uiuc.edu!mcdonald    Jul 15 11:01:00 1989



>     One of the bugbears pointed out by members of X3J3 is the possibility
>that if the current draft of the standard is not approved, ISO may adopt it
>as a standard in any case.  The result would be two incompatible Fortran
>standards.  I am not frightened by this prospect.  I would rather have
>a good ANSI standard for Fortran and a lousy ISO standard for Fortran than
>have the same lousy standard for both.

The possibility of this happening is the one good excuse for the
obnoxious way one has to get a copy of the draft standard. It is
copyrighted. IF ANSI dissapproves it, and doesn't want ISO to steal it,
ISO is going to be in big legal trouble. They would have to rewrite
it from scratch. And, as pointed out in another recent posting, that
would be a really tough job, keeping the same functionality!!!!!!