[CL] ISO/IEC 24707:2007

[Ed Barkmeyer]

Harry,

First, Congratulations and Thank you.  This is the end of a very 
long road.  There can be little doubt that it was worthwhile -- 
this will be a reference document for many years.  Thanks also to 
Michael, Chris, Pat, John, Bill and other technical contributors, 
but it has to be said that you carried a lot of the wood in 
turning this ember into a fire.

Second, maybe you aren't done.  It is possible to get the second 
batch of corrections in as a Technical Corrigendum.  In ISO such 
a document is a lot simpler.  It just says: this is a set of 
fixes for minor errors in the standard-as-published.  And the 
rest looks like a list of editing directions.  Technically, it is 
an ISO project, but it can be submitted to SC32 as a "new work 
item with draft text", and the SC can simultaneously ballot the 
new work item (do this? yes/no) and the draft TCorr (is this the 
right set of changes? yes/no, comments).  If there are any 
comments, you resolve them by creating the final text of the 
TCorr and send it to approval ballot in SC32 and thence to the 
ISO editor.  It is possible to do it all in 6 months.

The question is: is it worth the effort to get the second set of 
corrections into the specification?  Will they really affect 
conformance, use, understanding?  And does anyone have the 
stomach for another 6 months of ISO process?

Note also that the ballot opens Pandora's box.  Any National Body 
can send in a comment with any "minor technical correction" they 
please.  (Fortunately, the editing committee can ignore any such 
"corrections" that are heavier duty than was envisaged, unless 
they are attached to a NO vote.)  My experience is that you never 
get away with the TCorr you intended -- there are always half a 
dozen new bugs/issues that get raised in the comments.  And, of 
course, some of these are easy additions, and one or two of them 
cause debate.  The trick is not to get sucked into the "while we 
are at it, let us fix X and add Y" trap.  That stuff goes into a 
"revision" project, which can be started in a few years.

-Ed

-- 
Edward J. Barkmeyer                        Email: edbark at nist.gov
National Institute of Standards & Technology
Manufacturing Systems Integration Division
100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263                Tel: +1 301-975-3528
Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263                FAX: +1 301-975-4694