Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!abcfd20.larc.nasa.gov!teb.larc.nasa.gov!caywood
From: caywood@teb.larc.nasa.gov (John Caywood)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: FORTRAN POSIX bindings prepares to go to ballot
Keywords: IEEE Ballot Groups, Public Review & Comment
Message-ID: <1990Aug2.150503.16259@abcfd20.larc.nasa.gov>
Date: 2 Aug 90 15:05:03 GMT
References: <9080004@hpfcso.HP.COM> <2035@bnlux0.bnl.gov>
Sender: news@abcfd20.larc.nasa.gov (USENET File Owner)
Organization: NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA  USA
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In article <2035@bnlux0.bnl.gov> bam@bnlux0.bnl.gov (Bruce A. Martin) writes:
>In article <9080004@hpfcso.HP.COM> djm@hpfcso.HP.COM (Dan Magenheimer) writes:
>>
>>Subcommittee (TCOS-SS), all members of the ballot group must be both
>			 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>regular IEEE or Computer Society members.
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>By contrast, EE's have been welcome to comment on publicly-developed
>software standards, and their comments are treated equally with those of 
>others.  This is true, regardless of whether they pay dues to ACM!  
>
>This stands in sharp contrast to the practice of X3 (and others) of
>developing true consensus standards via an open process which does
>not give special status to dues-paying members of a particular
>organization.  (No, you don't have to be a member of CBEMA to
>receive attention to your public comment, to submit proposals, ...)
>
The original statement was just a bit incomplete.  Objections from
non-IEEE members must be resolved to the objector's satisfaction, just
as if they came from a member; the difference is that if a non-member says
Hey, this is great, it doesn't count toward (the official definition of)
consensus. Consequently, your objections *DO* receive attention, whether or
not you are an IEEE or CS member.

You can also note that this policy makes it more difficult for a single
organization or group to flood the balloting group with affirmatives in
an attempt to force through an unpopular standard.  It does *not* prevent
a group from flooding the ballots with objections to block the adoption
of an unpopular standard (a balloting diode? :-)

Please note that these are merely observations -- I don't imply that there
is no better way to ballot.
	John Caywood, Secty. POSIX.10