Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!unix.cis.pitt.edu!pitt!willett!ForthNet From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie) Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth Subject: ANS FORTH TECHNICAL COMMITTEE Message-ID: <2602.UUL1.3#5129@willett.pgh.pa.us> Date: 7 Apr 91 16:51:05 GMT Organization: (n.) to be organized. But that's not important right now. Lines: 170 Category 10, Topic 2 Message 133 Sat Apr 06, 1991 R.BERKEY at 11:29 PST copyright (c) 1991 Robert Berkey Splitting this posting into two parts or truncating it, for transmission to other computer message systems, constitutes violation of copyright. It's interesting that I got my dpANS mail ballot yesterday (Thu), and today (Fri/Sat) I hear a report that that mail ballot has already passed. Looks as if the ramrodders have been hard at work on this one. As for how I will be voting on that mail ballot, the issue was closed some eight to nine years ago. I first committed in 1982 and reiterated during the current X3.J14 series of meetings that I would vote NO against any so-called "standard" that violated the mathematical use of the word MOD. If I haven't repeated this often enough in the last couple of years, I'll say it again. I will vote NO against any so-called "standard" that violates the mathematical use of the word MOD. From some viewpoints, this issue may seem minor, but X3.J14's inability to accommodate a simple fact, the definition of MOD, exposes fundamental hypocrisy and corruption in X3.J14. The technical problems that exist in BASIS weigh irrelevant as long as X3.J14 wanders aimlessly, incapable of adhering to even their own watered-down policies, procedures, and charter. Count me out as a party to the fraudulent intent behind the submission of a Draft Proposed American National Standard (dpANS) from the X3.J14 committee. The committee has openly discussed that this document is not ready to be an American National Standard (ANS). But, why then is X3.J14 attempting to get the committees of X3 and ANSI to accept this fraud? Since I am not privy to the thinking of those who are ramrodding this step, the reader's guess is as good as mine. Here's my guess: (a) What the implementor's-party component of the committee wants is to be able to label their existing product with the title ANS so as to induce customers to part with their money in trade for that product. (b) At the same time, it is desirable that no external measure can exist with which to measure a system as ANS non-compliant, as this essentially reduces the "cost of compliance" to zero. (c) Note that from this viewpoint, the actual technical content of the document is irrelevant; however, the document must give an appearance of being substantive and useful. (d) The submission of a Technical Bulletin--as opposed to a dpANS--would assess the viewpoint of the community, but would not achieve (a). (e) The current BASIS document is sufficiently vague, ambiguous, and generalized--and good-looking; that it satisfies the basic goals of (a), (b) and (c). Therefore; inducing the X3.J14 committee to go for a dpANS, rather than the Technical Bulletin, is a no-lose situation under these criteria. If both X3 and the Forth public can be induced to let the dpANS become an ANS the way it stands, then "we" can get on with inducing customers to part with their money. If not, then the burden has been put on the buyer to name his price. A question I have been asking of members of the committee and community recently: how many people in the world make money from selling Forth systems? To put that another way, how many lords of Forth fiefdoms are there who can profit from permanently dividing the Forth community into dialectic camps? Now then, given the open admissions that this dpANS isn't taken seriously by the committee themselves as a possible ANS, it would be a curious event were X3 to nonetheless ignore the fraudulent intent behind this submission and pass the document out for public review. However, my experience with X3 has been that they cannot be trusted any more than X3.J14. X3, after all, is the committee who selected as the chair of X3.J14 a vendor: a vendor whose company has never produced a Standard System or a Standard Program. Robert's Rules of Order notes that the Chairperson selected should be a neutral party to various interests involved. Yet X3's selection for chairperson--in addition to being a vendor lacking experience with standards-- was one of the organizers of the Forth standard's cabal of October 1986. So, X3 could hardly have selected someone less neutral. This combination of politically manipulative and technically weak pervades the committee and BASIS to this day. X3 not only selected a vendor for the position of chair, but selected literally every officer of the committee from the Forth Vendor's Group. As with the chairperson, each of these other officers had been part of the Forth standard's cabal of October 1986. In this context it should be remembered just who X3 is part of: The Computer Business Equipment Manufacturer's Association (CBEMA). Hmmm, a vendor's association picking only vendors as officers? The seriousness of this matter is underscored in noting that ANS standards are authorized by Congress. I propose the following: Write Congressmen and Senators: Demand that the American National Standards Institute be called before Congress to explain why a manufacturer's association (CBEMA) holds a position of special influence within the American National Standards Institute. Write the President of the United States: Call for the Justice Department to investigate the American National Standard's Institute's move of the X3 committee to CBEMA. Call for the Justice Department to investigate CBEMA's relationship to the X3 committee. Write the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), NY, NY. Demand that X3 be deaccredited and reconstituted outside of CBEMA. Write CBEMA. Demand that CBEMA divest themselves of X3. Write X3. Demand that the X3.J14 charter be revoked. Write SPARC (c/o X3) Note to SPARC that X3.J14 doesn't even pretend to themselves that the current draft proposed American National Standard document is ready to be an American National Standard, that it is a disguised political trial balloon, and as such is a fraudulent attempt to coerce analysis from the Forth public. (mailing's should be Registered or have Return Receipt Requested.) X3 Secretariat: Computer and Business Equipment Manufacturers Association 311 First Street, NW, Suite 500, Washington, DC 20001-2178 Robert Berkey Member X3.J14 Technical Committee ----- This message came from GEnie via willett. You *cannot* reply to the author using e-mail. Please post a follow-up article, or use any instructions the author may have included (USMail addresses, telephone #, etc.). Report problems to: dwp@willett.pgh.pa.us _or_ uunet!willett!dwp