PWG> Document numbering - Candidates vs Standards

PWG> Document numbering - Candidates vs Standards

Dennis Carney dcarney at us.ibm.com
Mon Mar 17 10:21:28 EST 2003





In addition to the other arguments in favor of assigning document number to
Candidate Standards, here is another: it is what we've already been doing.
If we change policy now, we'll have the existing 5 documents that got
IEEE/ISTO numbers (5100.1-4 and 5101.1), and then a bunch of documents that
have progressed through the process as much or more than the existing 5,
but look less official due to the lack of an IEEE/ISTO number.  This is of
course not a *big* deal, but will be a source of constant irritation as we
will never be able to get rid of these 5 exceptions to our process.

Dennis Carney
IBM Printing Systems


                                                                                                                                                   
                      "McDonald, Ira"                                                                                                              
                      <imcdonald at sharpl        To:       "'Hastings, Tom N'" <hastings at cp10.es.xerox.com>, pwg at pwg.org                             
                      abs.com>                 cc:                                                                                                 
                      Sent by:                 Subject:  RE: PWG> Document numbering - Candidates vs Standards                                     
                      owner-pwg at pwg.org                                                                                                            
                                                                                                                                                   
                                                                                                                                                   
                      03/16/03 11:08 AM                                                                                                            
                                                                                                                                                   
                                                                                                                                                   




Hi,

Tom's mostly solid message (below) shows how easy it is to lose
sight of the forest for the trees.

Tom's last suggestion of using *different* standards body prefixes
for our PWG CS (Candidate Standard) and IEEE/ISTO STD (Standard)
is a high water mark of fuzzy thinking...

Only the IEEE/ISTO assigns the available number ranges to member
standards consortia (like the PWG's 510x series).

Of course, in documents of *other* standards bodies (like IETF
RFCs about updates to IPP), our PWG documents need a prefix.
The best prefix choice is 'IEEE/ISTO' - a suffix of 'PWG' as in
'IEEE/ISTO PWG' is redundant, because the number '510x.y' is
unique across all IEEE/ISTO member consortia.

Further, the 'IEEE/ISTO' prefix lends weight and credibility
to our PWG documents when they are being referenced by other
standards bodies.

Separately, Tom makes a good point that the ISO DIS (Draft
International Standard) corresponds exactly to our PWG
CS (Candidate Standard).  Therefore (??), we should assign
document numbers to PWG CS documents.  I agree with Tom that
we should NOT assign numbers to PWG WD (Working Draft)
documents.

Cheers,
- Ira McDonald
  High North Inc


-----Original Message-----
From: Hastings, Tom N [mailto:hastings at cp10.es.xerox.com]
Sent: Friday, March 14, 2003 7:24 PM
To: pwg at pwg.org
Subject: RE: PWG> Document numbering - Candidates vs Standards


Yikes!  The problem with numbering documents too early, is that you don't
know how many you may produce.  For example, I don't think that the
XHTML/Print folks thought they would be doing two documents until quite a
way into the project.  I think we should resist numbering documents until
after they pass Candidate Standard Last Call.

However, I do favor assigning numbers after they pass Candidate Standard
Last Call, rather than having to wait until Standard Last Call as we
discussed on the SM telecon yesterday.  However, as we agreed, we need to
carry some letters designation in the numbering to indicate that it is a
Candidate Standard versus a Standard.

As another exmple of a standards body that assigns numbers before final
approval, ISO use the prefix DP and DIS for Draft Proposal and Draft
International Standard, respectively.  I seem to recall when we were
working
on ISO DPA (remember that?), the official designation for Part 1 became
"ISO/IEC DP 10175-1" when the WG was finishing up on it and was "ISO/IEC
DIS
10175-1" while the ISO Member Bodies were reviewing it.  After all
approvals, its designation became "ISO/IEC 10175-1:1996.  And Part 2 was
"ISO/IEC 10175-2:1996".

So we need to make sure that we always include some organization
designation, such as PWG or IEEE-ISTO in front of Candidate Standards and
Standards.  I'm not sure which?

So the XHTML-Print and CSS Print Profile documents having completed Last
Call, we assign them 5102.1 and 5102.2.  So should the official
designations
be:

PWG CS-5102.1
PWG CS-5102.2

Or:
IEEE-ISTO CS-5102.1
IEEE-ISTO CS-5102.2

A similar question when they pass Last Call to become a Standard:

PWG STD-5102.1  or simply PWG 5102.1
PWG STD-5102.2  or simply PWG 5102.2

Or:
IEEE-ISTO STD-5102.1 or simply IEEE-ISTO 5102.1
IEEE-ISTO STD-5102.2 or simply IEEE-ISTO 5102.2

In fact the answer to each can be different:
We could use "PWG CS-51nn.n" for Candidate Standards and "IEEE-ISTO 51nn.n"
for Standards.

I think that the latter approach is the simplest and least likely to get
people confused.

Tom
-----Original Message-----
From: Harry Lewis [mailto:harryl at us.ibm.com]
Sent: Friday, March 14, 2003 06:51
To: don at lexmark.com
Cc: Hastings, Tom N; pwg at pwg.org
Subject: RE: PWG> Document numbering - Candidates vs Standards



Except, for us, (according to the new process we're banging out) it would
be


WD5300.1 Skywriting Print Standard (Working Draft)
----------------------------------------------
Harry Lewis
IBM Printing Systems
----------------------------------------------


don at lexmark.com
Sent by: owner-pwg at pwg.org
03/14/2003 05:23 AM
        To:        "Hastings, Tom N" <hastings at cp10.es.xerox.com>
        cc:        pwg at pwg.org
        Subject:        RE: PWG> Document numbering - Candidates vs
Standards




... and should we decide to number standards from the beginning of their
life like the IEEE does, then we could prefix it with "P" for "project" or
"preliminary."

P5300.1       Skywriting Print Standard (Project)
CS5300.1      Skywriting Print Standard (Candidate Standard)
STD5300.1     Skywriting Print Standard (Standard)

**********************************************
Don Wright                 don at lexmark.com

Chair,  IEEE SA Standards Board
Member, IEEE-ISTO Board of Directors
f.wright at ieee.org / f.wright at computer.org

Director, Alliances & Standards
Lexmark International
740 New Circle Rd
Lexington, Ky 40550
859-825-4808 (phone) 603-963-8352 (fax)
**********************************************





"Hastings, Tom N" <hastings at cp10.es.xerox.com>@pwg.org on 03/13/2003
05:42:08 PM

Sent by:    owner-pwg at pwg.org


To:    pwg at pwg.org
cc:
Subject:    RE: PWG> Document numbering - Candidates vs Standards


An other alternative is to keep the same number, but have some letter
prefixes, such as CS to mean candidate standard.

Thus the official PWG number for a Candidate Standard versus Standard for
Skywritting would be:

Ex CS-5300.1 = Skywriting Print Standard (Candidate Standard)
STD-5350.1 = Skywriting Print Standard (STANDARD)

For example, I seem to recall that ANSI standards say BSR nnnn for a draft
standard (which stands for Board of Standard Review, as I recall) while the
standard is being voted on.

Tom


Original Message-----
From: Harry Lewis [mailto:harryl at us.ibm.com]
Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2003 13:48
To: don at lexmark.com
Cc: pwg at pwg.org
Subject: PWG> Document numbering - Candidates vs Standards



Don, we're struggling in the PWG process discussion about ISTO numbers and
when and how they should be assigned in the process. First, we said no ISTO
number until STANDARD. Some feel Candidate Standards should have numbers
and
we're considering a hack on the numbering to indicate CS from STANDARD.

Ex 5300.1 = Skywriting Print Standard (Candidate Standard)
5350.1 = Skywriting Print Standard (STANDARD)

You (and others) must have experience with IEEE standards progression
(1284.x). Can you shed some light on the IEEE/ISTO numbering, what level of
maturity they expect when a number is assigned, how we might go about
assigning numbers to CS as well as S?
----------------------------------------------
Harry Lewis
IBM Printing Systems
----------------------------------------------


(See attached file: C.htm)





#### C.htm has been removed from this note on March 14, 2003 by Harry Lewis







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