PWG> "Draft Standard" is an oxymoron

PWG> "Draft Standard" is an oxymoron

Hastings, Tom N hastings at cp10.es.xerox.com
Fri Jan 31 14:35:20 EST 2003


Lee and Bill,
 
The problem is what do you call successive versions of the Draft Standard,
before you are ready to send it out for Last Call?
 
Working Drafts of the Draft Standard?
 
Using "Draft" in two different senses in the same sentence to identify a
document is pretty confusing.  And we know that people in normal conversion
like to drop the adjectives and just talk about the "Draft".  So which do
they mean when they say the "Draft is ...".
 
Tom

-----Original Message-----
From: Farrell, Lee [mailto:Lee.Farrell at cda.canon.com]
Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2003 18:33
To: PWG (E-mail)
Subject: RE: PWG> "Draft Standard" is an oxymoron


Duh.
 
[If people can understand "jumbo shrimp" without losing sleep, I don't see
why "draft standard" would cause a problem.]
 
lee
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Harry Lewis [mailto:harryl at us.ibm.com]
Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2003 6:05 PM
To: Hastings, Tom N
Cc: pwg at pwg.org
Subject: Re: PWG> "Draft Standard" is an oxymoron



Er... Um... so why is it so hard to put the definition to use and realize
that a "Draft Standard" is a preliminary version of a "Standard"? 
---------------------------------------------- 
Harry Lewis 
IBM Printing Systems 
---------------------------------------------- 



	"Hastings, Tom N" <hastings at cp10.es.xerox.com> 
Sent by: owner-pwg at pwg.org 


01/30/2003 04:24 PM 

        
        To:        pwg at pwg.org 
        cc:         
        Subject:        PWG> "Draft Standard" is an oxymoron	



Here is why I think that "Draft Standard" is an oxymoron.  Draft is too
fleeting.  Standard is meant to be more stable.

So I looked up the word "Draft" in the dictionary.  Webster's Seventh
Collegiate Dictionary says:

"a preliminary sketch, outline, or version".

We all use the word "draft" (or "working draft") to mean the document that
we update rapidly to get to a version that we all consider stable enough to
have a Last Call.

So one of the appealing suggestions made at today's call was to just remove
section 3.4 Draft Standard and have only 3.4 Proposed Standard and 3.6
Standard.  Both have to have a series of drafts to be reviewed to lead up to
being an approved Proposed Standard or an approved Standard.  And both need
to have a draft that is considered good enough to both trying a Last Call
and then the Last Call has to actually pass.

I think much of our trouble is terminology, so fixing the terminology, and
deleting a step seems to be a good thing to do and is NOT abandoning the
process or overturning turnips.

Tom



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