Re: XML and OO COBOL

From: Peter E. C. Dashwood (dashwood_at_enternet.co.nz)
Date: 05/27/04 

Date: 26 May 2004 23:06:05 -0700

Chuck,

I read your post with interest. As you know, the whole standards thing
is something I do not deal well with. I have tried very hard to put
the bitterness, frustration, and resentment I feel about it aside, but
it still winds me up...

All I will say is that I know there are a lot of very dedicated people
who contribute a lot of time to J4.

There were a couple of things in your post that got me to thinking, so
I have made some comments below.

Pete.

"Chuck Stevens" <charles.stevens@unisys.com> wrote in message news:<c934hl$1jg5$1@si05.rsvl.unisys.com>...
> "James J. Gavan" <jjgavan@shaw.ca> wrote in message
> news:5P6tc.597126$oR5.36770@pd7tw3no...
>
> > The driving force, (prioritizing), now that Chuck has corrected the
> > sequencing, are those ISO members. In large part, without any
> > statistics, I expect it will be 'Europeans' using mainframes - primarily
> > IBM and maybe Unisys users. (Think on that - the small guys in Europe,
> > PC users, don't have the time or money to get involved in ISO-claptrap).
>
> There's another issue here. J4 and WG4 are constituted *entirely*
> differently.
>
> J4 members are corporate entities -- currently IBM, Unisys, Micro Focus,
> Hewlett-Packard, Karlins' Korner, Victor Consulting and the International
> Technology Standards Commission of Japan.
>
> In contrast, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG4 committee membership is by *country* --
> specifically, the National Standards bodies for the country. I'm not sure
> of the complete list of delegations -- either participating or observing --
> but I'm reasonably sure ANSI, BIS, DIN, JISC, NEN and SNZ are all
> participating at one level or another, and I know there's been some interest
> from a couple of other countries in WG4 participation.
>
> This is a HUGE distinction. So is the fact that decisions by WG4 are by
> *consensus* -- if consensus is not reached, nothing happens. National
> standards bodies thus are in a position to say to their governments "Thou
> shalt not use a product in any government installation, military or
> otherwise, that does not conform to the current standard", and they are also
> in a position to say to WG4 "Our country will prevent adoption of any
> standard that has feature <x> or does not have feature <y>". I was around
> for some of the national-standards-body disagreements over character-set
> encodings in COBOL, and they were not particularly fun.
<<<
So the people in these groups are required to deal with Governments? I
hadn't realised that. The whole process stalls if, like in your
example, ONE country decides they "don't like it"?
>
> > It would follow from that the 'task' or 'driving force' within J4 will
> > follow that pattern - not some guy from a PC-oriented company. (BTW - I
> > scratched out from my previous message.... "Don got the other job
> > Covernor (chair) of WG4 in all probability because no other bugger
> > wanted it ! ...." . Not difficult to guess that there wont be too many
> > takers for the job that Chuck is doing - Secretary - possibly more
> > onerous than the Chairman's job !).
>
> The secretary stuff can be time-consuming but not difficult; trick is simply
> to stop the meeting until you get the important stuff transcribed!
>
> I don't handle politics all that well, and the chairmanship of J4 is
> political enough; it's about an order of magnitude worse for the WG4
> convener position. I don't envy Don the position, and I didn't envy Ann the
> position when she had it. It's one thing to deal with a personal position,
> perhaps a bit more political to deal with a corporate position. But it's a
> whole 'nother ball game to deal with a delegation that has been granted
> plenipotentiary authority to deal with the topic on behalf of an entire
> country. "I think it ought to be X." "Well, the Republic of Putrescent
> Mongoose has thoroughly investigated the matter, and the Republic of
> Putrescent Mongoose has determined beyond a shadow of a doubt that it ought
> to be Y!".
<<<
This is a telling point. I am chastened... (well, a bit anyway :-))

I guess it could be very interesting to try and persuade the
Putrescent Mongeese away from their position. There is always great
difficulty in negotiating, when ONE side has all the power. Is there
absolutely NO way this "right of Veto" can be circumvented? What if
there is a consensus from everybody else, but the Mongeese remain
intransigent? Couldn't the standard just move ahead and everyone agree
it would not be implemented in Putrescent Mongoose? Is it possible to
change the "rules" so that it is not necessary to have UNANIMOUS
approval for something to move ahead?
>
> -Chuck Stevens

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