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The SM f2f discussion of PWG Process was quite painful. It is obvious there are a multitude of varying perspectives on how to conduct the progression of a standards specification. We opened the process topic because we realized some conflicting information and need for clarification in our document.  I don't have a problem citing other organizations in search of "best practice" but I would like us to consider applying newfound reason to clarify our process, not redefine it! Our existing process distinguishes the key stages of Chartering, Proposing, Specifying, Implementing and Maintaining an industry standard. It recognizes supporting documents for this activity such as White Papers, Working Drafts and Standards. It also acknowledges activities such as Brainstorming, Requirements gathering, prototyping, implementing and testing. The process, as written, is an attempt to organize these activities and supporting documents in such a way that streamlines the progression from concept to final standard... something we hadn't seen in other venues. One of the key elements of the existing process is that there are ONLY 3 LAST CALLS. Each last call (if passed) makes a distinct transition to a more stable level of the standard. This is signified by the STATUS (reflected in the name) of the standard... not the version. Versioning was not discussed in the current PWG process (which is a flaw) but was assumed to be a linear progression on the working drafts that supported the standard progression. Several ideas for updating our process were floated in the phone conference today. I am not opposed to updating the process... if one thing was proven by today's call it is that there is very little agreement on how the standard should be interpreted. I do feel compelled to remind that a great deal of similar discussion went into creation of the current process. I do wonder how much effort we are likely to expend only to come up with a process with new naming and versioning that diagrams out to nearly what we have, today. I recommend anyone who has a proposal which they were trying to hash out in the call but who feels like, perhaps, their point did not get assimilated or would like to expose their concepts to a wider audience, go ahead and describe your idea here, for discussion on the PWG.org reflector         ---------------------------------------------- Harry Lewis IBM Printing Systems ----------------------------------------------