Re: SUO: RE: RE: FW: Comment #11 - 'SUO Evolution' -- Resolution
At 11:55 2000-09-16 +0200, West, Matthew MR SSI-GREA-UK wrote:
>
> Dear Jim,
>
> The point is that our work does need to address how the SUO is updated and
> changed, as Bill was suggesting, and so something about this should be in
> the scope and purpose, because it is not sufficient just to leave this to
> the existing standardisation process as you were suggesting.
Matthew-
The standards process should be enough to get the updates out in a timely basis. There are several options:
- Technical Corrigenda: Effectively, these are "bug fixes" to the standard, they are very tiny in scope, and can be issued as frequent as the committee desires.
- Amendments: These are "small changes" to the standard (i.e., not wholesale revision). Typically, these amendments also include the Technical Corridenda that has been approved previously. Like Technical Corregenda, they can be issued as frequent as the committee desires, but I don't see the committee issuing more than two amendments a year.
- Revisions: Signigicant changes may be incorporated into the review cycle.
Many people misinterpret the "5-year review cycle": 5 years the the *maximum* time in which a standards may be revised, reaffirmed, or withdrawn. The committee may revise a standard sooner than 5 years.
So assuming:
- Our standard is numbered, say, IEEE 2345
- We amend the standard three times a year
- We revise the standard every four years
- The first standard is issued in the year 2001 (unrealistic, but useful for illustration purposes)
our standards and ammendments would be labeled:
IEEE 2345:2001 <- First Edition
IEEE 2345A:2001
IEEE 2345B:2001
IEEE 2345C:2002
IEEE 2345D:2002
IEEE 2345E:2002
IEEE 2345F:2003
IEEE 2345G:2003
IEEE 2345H:2003
IEEE 2345J:2004
IEEE 2345K:2004
IEEE 2345L:2004
IEEE 2345:2005 <- Second Edition
There are some significant benefits for using this process:
- Implementors of SUO-conforming products and services can clearly identify what they conform to, e.g., "IEEE 2345F:2003" means that the implementation conforms to all the amendments up to "F".
- Consumers can clearly state their needs (from a procurement perspective), e.g., "products shall conform to IEEE 2345F:2003".
- Purchasers of the standard get all the current Technical Corrigenda and Amendments by simply asking for "IEEE 2345"
Registries can operates as the same speed as the Technical Corrigenda and Amendment process, but the registry has no way of identifying the "configuration management" (version) issues, such as "which set of features are included?".
You might not think this (the "configuration management" issue) matters much, but it will matter:
- If you are a vendor and you lose a contract because your system did not conform (if you can't point to all the features than it's hard to know whether or not you conform to the standard)
- If you are a consumer and you didn't get the interoperability you expected (you believed you had asked for "standards conforming" products, but they don't interoperate ... it's hard to expect interoperability when you don't know exactly what features have been incorporated into vendors' products)
-FF
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