jsq@usenix.org (John S. Quarterman) (05/03/90)
From: jsq@usenix.org (John S. Quarterman) At the January meeting of the IEEE/CS TCOS SEC (the group that approves new standards projects for the IEEE Computer Society), 11 new PARs (Project Authorization Requests) were approved. This led to a bit of a reaction at the April meeting, last week in Snowbird, Utah. All of the Institutional Representatives and various industry representatives pointed out that 11 PARs might be a few too many. This led to the formation of an ad hoc committee to solve the problem. The immediate result was a list of criteria that should be examined for each PAR. Here they are, as supplied by the TCOS SEC chair, Jim Isaak. Incidentally, not all PARs submitted at the April meeting were approved; all PARs submitted were examined after these criteria were accepted by the SEC. John S. Quarterman, USENIX Institutional Representative to IEEE/CS TCOS SEC. TCOS SEC N165 Criteria for PAR Approval April 25, 1990 SEC ad hoc committee on PAR Approval [approved at April 25 meeting, clarification/revision expected] Criteria should be assumed to apply to all PARs. PARs which a submitter believes are exempt from certain criterion should state the reasons for such an exemption during the PAR submission process. If such an exception requests that a PAR be approved when there is not an existing body of work, the submitter must indicate why preliminary work should not be done in another forum first, and then moved into a TCOS sponsored work group. The following criteria will be applied by the TCOS SEC to all PARs submitted for consideration of sponsorship: 1. There must be existing industry experience which represents a substantive portion of the scope of the PAR. 2. There must be a base document with community support from which the work can be started. If there are several documents, then there must be evidence of the willingness of the affected parties to work together to generate a single standard. 3. The scope of work must specify a realistic set of objectives, attainable by the specified completion date. Note that the completion date must be within a window which allows the produced standard to be accepted and useful. 4. The PAR must specify work which will attain a comparable level of acceptance and use as work already completed by TCOS. 5. For PARs affecting approved standards, a plan for coordination and integration of the work must be established. Extensions or modifications to approved standards should only be made after careful consideration of the impact on the community which relies on these stable, approved standards. PARs which propose extensions or modifications must indicate the other TCOS standards work which they will affect. 6. Submitters of a PAR must exhibit the communities commitment to participate in the work. These particpants must include a viable core of administrative personnel (a Chair, a Secretary, and a Technical Editor), as well as a sufficient number of technical experts representing a reasonable balance of viewpoints. 7. The PAR's proposed scope of work must be within the scope of TCOS activities. 8. The timeframe for the work specified in the PAR must be appropriate given the impact it will have on TCOS resources (e.g. core personnel from other active TCOS work groups, meeting space, etc...). 9. The submitter of a PAR must draft an addendum to the applicable section of the POSIX.0 document, including information on the requirements of the work. In the case of a PAR for Application Environment Profiles this text could be used as their "base document". (See requirement 2). ==================== Volume-Number: Volume 19, Number 97