----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, November 12, 2004 7:21
PM
Subject: Re: ATML Test Results
Finalization
John Sheppard writes:
My apologies. I
misunderstood.
I guess I have some questions, since I do not
know how standards work under a technical committee would function. The IEEE
indemnifies standards developers when work is performed under a PAR through
the Standards Association. Will DATC provide similar indemnification? Does
DATC have similar requirements for openness and consensus? How would this
work? What IEEE label would be applied to the work since there would be no
draft standard anymore?
The work under the DATC would be on the
same footing as gathering for a technical conference. No special
indemnification attaches. The DATC would provide only an IEEE
sponsorship for meetings and the like; other rules would be laid on only by
the committee. The only reason to use it would be to give a temporary
"home" if we want to do some techincal work before kicking in the six month
limit of a study group before submitting a PAR.
First, the ATML group has
been able to work fine without a sponsor for some time. The reason for
bringing it into the IEEE is explicitly for the purpose of standardization,
not sponsorship. A PAR already exists for the base (architecture) standard,
and we are on the verge of approving the PAR for the Test Results schema.
Therefore, there would be no study group for these efforts. Further, remaining
work has already been assigned to existing subcommittees, so there is no
need for a study group. Thus the six month limit does not
apply.
We also have the issue of now having a PAR for
an ATML base standard. As such, IEEE-SA now "owns" ATML and the copyright on
all drafts.
No conflict there. But I must admit
I'm a little confused; if we are at the point of drafts, surely we can get a
PAR done in six months? I admit I've fallen down on reading the Emails a
bit, but how much work do we have to do before we get a PAR done, which is
really all we need to do in the six month period of the study group?
After that we have five years, after all. I'm happy to offer the DATC
for pre-PAR technical work, but if we are having to worry about
indemnification and copyright for drafts, we should be far enough along to
spend the first six months to get the PAR right and then go into the five year
working group period. It would seem that the pre-study group technical
period is redundant.
We have a PAR being
considered in an electronic meeting of Steering now. Two more PARs have been
drafted but are not going to be put before Steering until the next
face-to-face meeting (in January). There seems to have been some
misunderstanding that getting a PAR is a problem when it is not. In fact,
there have been numerous attempts to pull consideration of the Test Results
PAR, even when good progress has been made. In fact, the vote should come
early next week. The process we have been going through (minus the
hiccups from misunderstandings) is pretty typical. Again, I do not believe any
study group is required.
On the indemnification
issue, I for one would be very nervous without being indemnified. These
schemas are planned to be used in what is turning out (IMHO) to be a
politically charged environment. If things don't go swimmingly, I can imagine
someone suing. I would not want to be hanging out there on my own. This is why
I have been pushing process and rules so hard.
In other words, the work under the DATC
shouldn't *really* be thought of as standards work per se, since work before a
PAR is created isn't really standards work. The first Email left me with
the impression that the transition had left some purely techical work to
be done before the PAR was issued. Was I wrong?
I believe there is a
mixture here. First, as mentioned, we have an approved architecture PAR and
are about to get another PAR for test results. We have a draft for the
diagnostics schema being worked under the current P1232a PAR and a draft for
the test results schema. There is also a draft common schema, but I think
there is considerable work to be done yet on that. Then there are other
projects that have not really gotten off the ground. Since there are existing
PARs and drafts, it seems silly to me to have technical work done outside of
the SDO responsible.
John
Dave Barton
EDAptive Computing