[SCL] Fwd: Common Logic status with respect to standards

[Harry Delugach]

As many of you know, I've volunteered to serve as editor of the Common 
Logic standard that is being proposed to ISO. Having attended my first 
ISO meeting, I'd like to get the standards effort organized. So here 
are my thoughts. These are purely administrative notes; I will have a 
separate technical note in a day or two. Please don't overlook the last 
paragraph!

The current status of Common Logic is as a Work Item assigned to 
ISO/IEC JTC1/SC32 WG2. There is a joint technical committee between the 
ISO and the IEC called Joint Technical Committee 1 (there is no number 
2). Under JTC1 there is a subcommittee on information technology called 
SC32. Under that subcommittee, there is Working Group 2. This is the 
international body responsible for metadata standards. The steps in the 
process are briefly as follows:

A working Draft (WD) needs to be submitted to WG2 for comments. It will 
be called ISO/IEC WD 24707. It must conform to ISO formatting 
standards, which basically means using a Word template. In order to get 
the process rolling, we will need a working draft for the INCITS L8 
meeting in Washington on 17 Dec 2003. This will be a chance for the US 
part of the international group to discuss the standard and get their 
comments out in the open.

A Working Draft becomes a Committee Draft (CD) which must be approved 
by WG2 and then formally blessed by SC32. I would like for this to take 
place at the next SC32 meeting which will take place in Xian, China in 
late May 2004. Depending on the outcome of that meeting, we may need to 
address comments and prepare another committee draft (CD2), which will 
also be subject to SC32 approval. Once CD's are refined, they become a 
Final Committee Draft (FCD) with responses to ballots by SC32. After 
that it becomes a Final Draft International Standard (FDIS) which is 
balloted by JTC1 (the highest level). The last step is to actually 
approve the standard as a completely approved international standard 
(IS) ISO/IEC IS 24707. My point is to remind everyone that this a 
time-consuming process, which will probably take two or three years. 
Therefore we have no time to waste.

The working group likes the general organization of having the Common 
Logic core (now called SCL) as part 1 of the standard, and then having 
KIF, CGIF, and CLML as parts 2, 3 and 4 showing how all of the core can 
be mapped to each particular language L. Parts 2, 3, and 4 should each 
describe extensions to the languages that are NOT part of the core as 
well. There can be informative (i.e., not prescriptive) annexes that 
help further explain the languages.

I might also mention that calling Common Logic a "draft international 
standard" is incorrect -- it is currently only an ISO work item with no 
content, since there is no official status to the white paper that was 
used for voting on the work item. After the SC32 meeting in May we may 
actually call it a draft standard. Protocol, terminology and procedure 
are very important to the ISO.

ACTION ITEMS:
- prepare a working paper (Working Draft is a specific ISO term) for 
the INCITS L8 meeting in mid December. This is the U.S. representative 
to ISO's Working Group. As editor, I will take the lead in keeping an 
"official" version. Be aware that we will have to use Microsoft Word 
format -- either Word itself or Open Office, etc.
- attempt to get additional participation from other countries (e.g., 
France, Australia, Germany) in commenting on the working paper.
- examine other standards that may overlap CL, especially the Z 
standard (ISO/IEC 13568) which has been recently approved. There is 
concern that Z (pronounced "zed") has already standardized a form of 
logic. I have a copy of that standard for anyone who is interested.

As editor, my role is to keep things moving and be custodian of the 
"official" version. I intend to take this role seriously, which means 
that I have an obligation to try to resolve differences and lead/push 
us to agreement. I consider it vital to reach consensus on a document 
that can go forward. Though I haven't met everyone involved in this 
effort, I welcome advice and participation from readers of this list as 
well as any others we can get involved.

Thanks in advance for everyone's help.
Harry


-- 
  Harry S. Delugach
  -------------------                  also check out ICCS 2004 at 
http://concept.cs.uah.edu
  Associate Professor
  Computer Science Dept., Technology Hall N-351
  University Of Alabama In Huntsville
  Huntsville AL 35899 U.S.A.
  voice: (256) 824-6614   fax: (256) 824-5093
  delugach at cs.uah.edu
  http://www.cs.uah.edu/~delugach