Subject: WG11/N363 - Minutes of April 1993 WG11 meeting

From: Willem Wakker <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Jun 93 11:07:31 N

DRAFT MINUTES OF MEETING		      SC22/WG11/N363

Committee:   ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG11

Place:	     Sheraton Commander Hotel
	     Cambridge (MA), U.S.A.

Date:	     April 26 - 30, 1993

Attendees:   Mr. Ed Barkmeyer	   NIST, USA
	     Mr. Jeff Dawson	   DEC, USA
	     Mr. Ken Edwards	   IBM, USA
	     Mr. John Gough	   QUT, Australia
	     Mr. Brian Meek	   King's College London, UK
	     Mr. Paul Rabin	   OSF, USA (Liaison WG15)
	     Mr. Craig Schaffert   DEC, USA
	     Mr. Willem Wakker	   ACE, Netherlands
Members SC21/WG8/RPC:
	     Mr.Tony Hinxman	   DEC,USA
	     Mr. Alistair Munro    Bristol University, UK
	     Mr. Dan Yellin	   IBM, USA
Observers:
	     Mr. Bill Carlson	   Intermetrics, USA (Liaison WG9)

1.  Agenda (WG11/N349)

It was noted that Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning were reserved for
a combined meeting with SC21/WG8/RPC.

The agenda was adopted.

It was agreed that the order of business in the draft agenda would not be
followed, but each item would be discussed at the most suitable time,
considering the combined meetings with the RPC group.

2.  Minutes of Previous Meeting (WG11/N341)

No changes were made to the minutes of the October 1992 meeting; the
minutes were approved.

3.  Convenor Report

The following issues were reported:

  1.  Since the last meeting both Australia and Austria have announced to
      become P-members of SC22, and to nominate experts to WG11; the expert
      from Australia was welcomed to the meeting.  The interest of these
      two countries in the work of WG11 was noted as a positive sign.

  2.  The project editor of the LIPC document, Mr. Ken Edwards, had
      announced that he will not be able to attend any more meetings of
      WG11 (or X3T2).  He offered to produce a new version of LIPC based on
      the outcome of this meeting, and to continue as long as possible to
      act as an `off-line' editor.

      During this meeting it became clear that the project editor for the
      LID document, Mr. Ed Barkmeyer, will be in the same position after
      the July 1993 meeting of WG11.  The convenor will report the concern
      of WG11 in these matters to SC22.

4.  National Activity Reports

4.1  BSI IST/5/11, Report by Brian Meek

The UK panel (IST/5/-/11) has met once after the October 1992 WG11 meeting
and once before Easter to determine the recommendations of the panel to the
UK "SC22" committee, IST/5, for the UK responses to the various letter
ballots.  The recommendations were accepted though with minor additions, in
the form of additional comments, in two cases.	A further meeting was
scheduled for just after Easter but low attendance meant it became a
discussion between the panel convenor, Jon Diamond, and the UK delegate to
the April 1993 WG11 meeting, Brian Meek, to ensure there was nothing
unclear about the UK positions on various issues.

The panel noted with concern the forthcoming resignation from WG11 of Ken
Edwards, the LIPC editor, and wants to record its appreciation of his work.
No names have been identified from the UK for any possible replacement as
project editor for LIPC.

As part of the panel's continuing attempt to promote language independent
standards, Brian Meek is giving a presentation to DECUS UK in May 1993
entitled "What is a procedure call?"  A preprint is available, and comments
on it from WG11 members will be welcome, preferably before the presentation
on 13 May.  Language-independent standards are also referred to in a
contribution to a UK discussion on proliferation of language standards.

4.2  ANSI X3T2, Report by Ken Edwards

Since the October SC22/WG11 meeting in Paris, France, X3T2 has met twice
with the main focus of these meetings being the formulation of ballot
comments on the LIA-1 2nd CD ballot, LID 2nd CD ballot, and the LIPC CD
Registration ballot.  The US position on the LIA-1 2nd CD ballot was NO
with comments of which five of these comments were considered major.  The
US position on the LID 2nd CD ballot was NO with comments of which 2 of
these comments were considered major.  The US position on the LIPC CD
Registration ballot was YES with comments.

There is concern within the US that participation on the LI projects within
X3T2 is dropping dramatically.	The individuals who no longer plan on
attending the X3T2 meeting that were actively involved in the LI work are
Ed Barkmeyer, Ken Edwards, Mark Hamilton, and Joe Treat.  This leaves
basically only a core group of people on the X3T2 LI ad hoc group and their
focus is mainly on LIA.

Craig Schaffert will be assuming the the SC22 IR role for X3T2 that was
previously held by Ken Edwards.

4.3  AFNOR/CG 97/CN 22/GE 11

No report was received.

4.4  DIN

No report was received.

5.  Work Item 22.14 - Language Bindings Guidelines

The editor has produced an updated version of the Guidelines, incorporating
the editorial changes as specified in WG11/N340 in response to the JTC1
ballot comments.  The document has been forwarded to the SC22 secretariat
for publication by ITTF.

Milestones for the Language Bindings Guidelines project:

5.3   93-06   TR published

6.  Work Item 22.16 - Language Independent Procedure Calling

Based on the agreements reached at the last WG11 meeting, the project
editor had produced a new version: LIPC WD#6.0 (WG11/N344) which was sent
to SC22 for registration as CD (SC22/N1289).  The registration ballot was
closed on March 19, 1993; the summary of voting and the comments are in
SC22/N1347 (WG11/N357).  The result was that 6 SC22 P-members voted Yes
without comment (Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, Finland, Germany and the
Netherlands), 3 SC22 P-members voted Yes with comments (New Zealand, UK and
USA) and 2 SC22 P-members were abstaining (Canada and Italy).  The SC22
secretariat forwarded the comments to WG11 for consideration.

The comments were discussed, and agreements were reached on changes that
should be made to the document before it can be registrated as a CD.  The
editor agreed to produce a revised version of LIPC and a document with the
WG11 responses to the comments.  The revised version will be sent to SC22
for registration after final approval of WG11 during the July 1993 meeting.

During a combined meeting with representatives from the RPC group, document
N353 was discussed (changes to RPC proposed by WG11 during the October 1992
meeting in Paris), and agreement was reached on almost all comments on RPC
part 2 (see WG11/N360).  Unfortunately it was not possible to discuss the
comments on RPC part 1 from N353, due to lack of time of the RPC group.

Milestones for the LIPC project:

2.8   93-07   WD approved for registration as CD

7.  Work Item 22.17 - Language-Independent Data Types

Based on the agreements reached at the last WG11 meeting, the project
editor had produced a new version: LID WD#7 (WG11/N345) which was sent to
SC22 for registration as second CD (SC22/N1305).  The ballot was closed on
April 16, 1993; as the ballot comments were not yet available during the
meeting it was decided to postpone the LID discussion until the July 1993
meeting of WG11.

Milestones for the LID project:

2.8   91-01   WD approved for registration as CD
3.0   91-05   CD registered
3.1   91-05   CD study initiated
3.8   93-07   CD approved for registration as DIS

8.  Work Item 22.28 - Language-Independent Arithmetic, Part 1: Integer and
    Floating Point Arithmetic

The ballot on LIA part 1 (CD 10967-1, WG11/N318) closed on January 28th,
1993.  The result of the ballot (10 YES votes, 1 NO vote from the USA) are
in document WG11/N355 (SC22/N1325).

During the meeting an additional comment from The Netherlands on the status
of appendix B.5 (Informative FORTRAN-77 binding) was noted.

During the discussion of the comments from the UK and the US, agreement was
reached amongst the participants of the meeting on the resolution of the
objections from the US.  This effectively changes the US NO vote to a YES
vote.

The project editor will produce a revised version which will be forwarded
(subject to final approval of WG11 during the July 1993 meeting) to the
SC22 secretariat for DIS registration.	The project editor will also
produce a document with the resolutions of the ballot comments.

The binding of LIA-1 to Modula-2 (a direct reference from the Modula-2
standard CD 10514 to LIA-1) was reviewed, and a ballot comment was drafted
(WG11/N359).  This comment supports the Modula-2 effort in this area, gives
some comments and describes the changes to LIA-1, accepted by WG11 during
this meeting, in order to ensure maximal alignment.

Milestones for the LIA Part 1 project:

3.8   93-04   CD approved for registration as DIS

9.  Work Item 22.33 - Language-Independent Arithmetic, Part 2: Language
    Independent Mathematical Procedure Standard

Due to the work on LIA part 1 the work on LIA part 2 has been delayed; the
milestones for Part 2 were shifted.

Milestones for the LIA Part 2 project:

2.1   91-09   WD study initiated
      93-10   First draft circulated
2.8   94-08   WD draft for CD registration

10.  Work Item 22.34 - Language-Independent Arithmetic, Part 3: Language
     Independent Complex Arithmetic and Procedure Standard

Due to the work on LIA part 1 and the resulting delay for LIA Part 2, the
milestones for Part 3 were shifted.

Milestones for the LIA Part 3 project:

2.1   91-09   WD study initiated
      94-11   First draft circulated
2.8   95-04   WD draft for CD registration

11.  Cross language issues

11.1  POSIX

It was decided that a NWI proposal, titled `Guidelines for the Preparation
of Language Independent Service Specifications', with the justification
from document WG11/N338, will be forwarded to the SC22 secretariat for JTC1
ballot.

It was reported that IEEE considers to stop the LI activities for POSIX.
The consequences for such a step, which is first to be reviewed by WG15,
for the LIS activities in ISO is unclear.

11.2  PCTE

There was nothing to report on PCTE.

11.3  IRDS

There was nothing to report on IRDS.

11.4  ANDF

Mr. Andy Johnson of OSF gave a presentation on the Architecture Neutral
Description Format.

12.  Planning and Future Meetings

The next meeting will be in Amsterdam on July 19-23 1993, hosted by ACE.

As it is the expectation that all documents (LIA-1, LIPC and LID) will go
out for ballot shortly after the July meeting, it is useless to have
another meeting in November 1993; the first quarter of 1994 seems to be a
more appropriate period. A decision on a new date will be taken in July;
the invitation to hold this meeting in London still stands (subject to
availability of a meeting room).

   - Second meeting 1993

     Date:	  July 19-23 1993
     Place:	  Amsterdam (ACE)
     Status:	  Confirmed.

13.  Close of Meeting

The host, OSF, and its representative, Mr. Paul Rabin, were thanked for
organizing the meeting and offering dinner to WG11.

Mr. Ken Edwards was thanked for his contribution to the work of WG11, and
especially for his effort in the difficult task of producing the first
drafts of the LIPC document.

Documents identified since last mailing

________________________________________________________________________________
WG11   Other	    Date	Title
Nbr    Nbrs
________________________________________________________________________________
355    SC22/N1325   9302xx	Summary of Voting and Comments on CD 10967-1
356    JTC1/N2319   930122	U.S. Contribution on API Specs.
357    SC22/N1347   9304xx	Summary of Voting and Comments on LIPC
358		    9304xx      Character Issues in CD 11404
359		    9305xx	Liaison statement to SC22/WG13 - Modula-2
360		    9305xx	Agreement between RPC and WG11 on N353
361    SC22/N1354   9305xx	Summary of Voting and Comments on LID
362		    9305xx	Meeting announcement WG11 meeting July 1993
363		    9305xx	Minutes WG11 Meeting April 1993
________________________________________________________________________________
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Willem Wakker					 email: <[email-masked]>
cccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc
ACE Associated Computer Experts bv		   ...!mcsun!ace!willemw
van Eeghenstraat 100				    tel: +31 20 6646416
1071 GL  Amsterdam				    fax: +31 20 6750389
The Netherlands					     tx:  11702 (ace nl)
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee