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
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Harry Lewis
IBM Printing Systems
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jan 30 2003 - 16:12:12 EST