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From: psmith@mozart.uucp (Presley Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: FIRST public review - response fina
Message-ID: <4161@convex.UUCP>
Date: 20 Dec 89 21:56:39 GMT
References: <14164@lambda.UUCP> <6800003@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Sender: news@convex.UUCP
Reply-To: psmith@convex.COM (Presley Smith)
Organization: Convex Computer Corporation, Richardson, Tx.
Lines: 92

In article <6800003@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> hirchert@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu writes:
>
>2. Presley Smith (psmith@mozart.uucp) writes
>>In fact, the rules called the SD-2, are fairly clear that all letters are
>>supposed to be sent prior to the start of the next review and that the 
>>negatives are to be addressed with the commenters before the start of 
>>the next review by response to those commentors.  That is all part of 
>>milestone 14 which must be completed before the return to milestone 12
>>which is another public review cycle. 
>
>   As Presley well knows, this is what X3J3 believed to be true and the goal it
>   attempted (unsuccessfully) to meet.  When X3J3 inquired whether it was
>   necessary to send out the responses before forwarding a revised draft for
>   the second public comment period, they were told that it was not and that
>   all that was required was that X3J3 approve the responses before the next
>   review, not that they actually be mailed by then.  In other words, the
>   rules in SD-2 are not quite as clear as Presley is suggesting.
>   Nevertheless, X3J3 has been revising its internal procedures for handling
>   public comment to try to make certain that the kinds of delays that occurred
>   in the sending of the responses to the first rounds do _not_ occur in the
>   handling of the second round of comments.
>
 
The SD-2 is, in fact, VERY clear on the processing order.  In fact, the X3J3
was supposed to have ALL the letters MAILED by the time the 2nd public review
was STARTED not after the public review was 1/2 over or finished.  This
issue is not dead.  It will have to be addressed by SMC and the BSR because
of the problems that have occurred.  

Pressure from the international organizations have caused problems in the 
ANSI processing rules.  This is a set of issues that need to be addressed
by ANSI and ISO to obtain a better consensus on what the rules are.  The
two organizations handle standards development such different ways, that
the conflict occurs as to which rules are being followed.  If this becomes
the ISO standard, which I expect to happen, it must still be approved as
an ANSI standard under the ANSI rules for the acceptance of other standards. 

It is unclear as to how this situation will effect the final processing of
this standard as an ANSI standard.  It's very likely that an additional 
public review will be required in this country due to the rules violations
that have occured before that standard can ever become an ANSI standard.

>3. Presley also says
>>On an appeal or protest, you will get a much higher level of attention
>>that what you get with the public review letter.  The management groups
>>of the standards processes work the protests and appeals.
>
>   Maybe so, but so far all they have done is send us the protest letters
>   through the same channels they send us regular and late second round
>   comments.  So far X3J3 has been given no special instructions for 
>   handling these letters, and so they have been put into the same process
>   as the second round comments.  (The people involved in that process _have_
>   been asked to take special care in processing the protest letters, but
>   that's as far as it goes (as of now).)  Thus, it may be that the management
>   groups intend to monitor X3J3's handling of these letters more closely, but
>   that has had no immediate effect on how they will be handled technically.
>
>I suppose that since it is probably more than 15 days after even the last of
>the first round comments should have been received, this may be a moot issue
>by now, anyway.

A protest letter that states you do no agree with the committee action on 
this issue or that issue will be handled by the committee in a manner 
similar to public review comments.   The committee will review it again,
take action on it in some way (maybe not do anything??) and will tell 
you what they did.  X3 will certainly note the number of protest letters
that are generated from the committee's responses.  It's a measure of
satisfaction with the responses.

That is much different to an appeal.  There is a section of the SD-2 that
defines the appeal process.  Appeals are done on rules violations, 
procedural issues, etc.  They typically are not done on technical issues.
If you write an appeal, you will, in fact, get attention at a much 
higher level than X3J3.  X3 may request X3J3's input on the appeal, but 
X3, BSR, etc. will have to work the appeal directly.   An appeal is 
in fact the process of going over the technical committees head to 
protest to the higher level committees.  You have the right on an appeal
to appeal to X3 and if rejected there appeal to the ANSI Board of 
Standards Review (BSR).  On appeal, you have the right to present your
case directly to those bodies and work with those bodies to resolve the 
problem.  

There was an appeal on the ANSI C standard that kept that standard from
being finalized for many months.  If appeals start happening on Fortran 8x, 
it could delay approval of the proposed standard for some period of time.

X3 in the debate on whether to keep FORTRAN 77 as an active standard, 
several times stopped the debate, got clarification on the rules and 
procedures, and was extremely careful to do everything by the book fo 
be sure that no appeals could be filed on rules violations.   They
have become more sensitive to those issues as a result of the problems
with ANSI C.