From Miles.Ellis@educational-technology-resources-centre.oxford.ac.uk Wed Jul 12 11:59:40 1995 Received: from oxmail2.ox.ac.uk by dkuug.dk with SMTP id AA16286 (5.65c8/IDA-1.4.4j for ); Wed, 12 Jul 1995 12:58:40 +0200 Received: from vax.ox.ac.uk by oxmail2.ox.ac.uk. with SMTP (PP) id <25301-0@oxmail2.ox.ac.uk.>; Wed, 12 Jul 1995 11:57:29 +0100 Received: from 163.1.85.1 by vax.ox.ac.uk (MX V4.1 VAX) with SMTP; Wed, 12 Jul 1995 11:56:49 +0100 X-Sender: MELLIS@vax.ox.ac.uk Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Wed, 12 Jul 1995 11:59:40 +0000 To: sc22wg5 , gorelik@applmat.msk.su (Alla Gorelik), honmarou@soft.hitachi.co.jp (Honma Ichiro), lignelet@vcnam.cnam.fr (Patrice Lignelet), nishimura@math.keio.ac.jp (Kazuo Nishimura), Bernard.Pichon@obspm.fr (Bernard Pichon), schonauer@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de (Willi Schoenauer), Snoek@rc.tudelft.nl (J A M Snoek), C21101@SUCEMI.BITNET (V L Ushkova), yoshi@lang1.bs1.fc.nec.co.jp (Yukimasa Yoshida) From: Miles.Ellis@educational-technology-resources-centre.oxford.ac.uk (Miles Ellis) Subject: URGENT Letter Ballot X-Charset: ASCII X-Char-Esc: 29 At our recent meeting in Tokyo, as you know, WG5 voted unanimously to try to use Type 2 Technical Reports to accelerate the development of certain features which were deemed to be too important to wait until Fortran 2000, but which could not make Fortran 95. Resolution T7 approved the policy, while resolutions T8, T9 and T10 identified three subject areas in which WG5 intended to produce TRs. In resolution T7 I was directed "to submit proposals to the SC22 secretariat for new work items for the production of these technical reports in time for a decision to be made at the SC22 plenary meeting, to be held in Annapolis in September 1995." While I was preparing these proposals, however, I realised that we/I had made a slight error in the way in which our plans were worded - due, I suspect, to the fact that none of us is very familiar with the JTC1 Directives. There are two ways of obtaining approval for a change and/or extension to the approved programme of work - through a new work item proposal (NP) or through subdivision of an existing work item. A new work item is intended for a completely new activity and requires both SC22 and JTC1 approval. The SC22 approval may be obtained at a Plenary meeting, but the subsequent JTC1 approval requires a letter ballot. Moreover, all new work item proposals require five countries to commit themselves to active participation in the project. A subdivision, on the other hand, simply requires the approval of SC22 - which can be given at the Plenary. This is the approach that was used to authorise the work that ultimately led to the varying character string standard (IS 1539-2:1994). I believe that it was WG5's intent that we should proceed as quickly as possible to obtain approval for this work and that no great consideration was given to the exact approach. Moreover, the accompanying papers (N1111 and the Minutes of the meeting) both make it clear that the intent was to have small international groups of people making up the Development Bodies. (I currently have between three and five volunteers to make up each of these Developent Bodies - which is about what was intended, I believe, but in no case do they represent more than three countries. Despite this being more or less what we anticipated, this clearly would not be enough to satisfy the NP approach). Furthermore, since it is WG5's clearly expressed intention that the results of the TR process should be adopted in essentially the identical form in the subsequent revision of the main Fortran standard it seems very clear that it is a part of that revision process (as it was always intended to be) and not a separate process; subdivision, therefore, seems more approppriate from that perspective also. However, since the relevant WG5 resolution refers to "new work items", the SC22 Secretariat believes that there should be a 'rapid' WG5 letter ballot to confirm that a request for subdivision is acceptable to the membership instead of the the full New Work Item approach which is what the resolution actually implies. This ballot is being conducted by email, other than for the handful of members for whom I have no email address who will be sent paper copies. Please respond as soon as possible and, in any case, so as to arrive with me no later than noon GMT on Thursday 21st July. Once I have received confirmation, or otherwise, of the approach that is to be taken then I shall circulate the relevant proposals to WG5 for their approval and/or comments, together with the names of the proposed Project Editors for approval, so that I the proposals that I make to the Plenary in September have been fully approved in advance by WG5. The timing means that I shall have to submit draft proposals to SC22 before there has been time to obtain full WG5 confirmation, but I can always submit modified versions at the meeting itself if that is the wish of the majority of WG5 members. The immediate issue, however, is the question of whether subdivision is the appropriate way to proceed. Miles ----------------------------- WG5 letter ballot ---------------------------- I approve the action of the Convenor in submitting requests to subdivide the main Fortran work item (22.02.01) to create subprojects for the production of Technical Reports instead of submitting requests for new work items for this purpose, as originally specified in Tokyo Resolution T7. -------------- | | | | YES | NO | | | | -------------- (signed) .......................................... (country) ......................................... Please delete one or other of the two alternatives and return to Miles Ellis at to arrive no later than noon GMT on Thursday 21st July 1995. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ======================================================================= Dr Miles Ellis CCCCCCCCCCC Director: Educational Technology Resources Centre C C University of Oxford, 37-41 Wellington Square C E Oxford OX1 2JF, ENGLAND C T C R Telephone: +44 1865 270528 Fax: +44 1865 270527 C C Email: Miles.Ellis@etrc.ox.ac.uk CCCCCCCCCCC =======================================================================