[This document is NCITS/J13 99/009] Draft Agenda for 14-17Oct99 J13 Meeting at SRI ==================== NCITS/J13 will meet at SRI 333 Ravenswood Drive Menlo Park, CA 94025 Oct 14-16 1999 starting at 9:30 AM Pacific Time, Oct 14. As discussed and agreed at the July 27, 1999 meeting, this meeting is scheduled to abut but not overlap the 1999 LUGM in San Francisco. Menlo Park is on the San Francisco Peninsula about 30 miles South of San Francisco and immediately North of Palo Alto. It is served by all three Bay Area airports: San Jose, San Francisco, and (slightly less conveniently) Oakland. Shuttle Van service and other transportation modes are readily available. SRI is also convenient to a station of Caltrain, the local commuter rail that runs between San Francisco and San Jose. I anticipate starting each day at 9:30 and ending Thursday and Friday by 5:30 unless there is committee vote to extend. I anticipate ending somewhat earlier on Saturday afternoon, depending on the pleasure of the committee. I expect no facilities fee will be charged for this meeting. My thanks go to Mark Stickel and SRI for making available their facilities. Information about local hotels/motels will be forthcoming shortly. Mark is checking whether SRI has any existing information materials. Steven M. Haflich, Chair, NCITS/J13 smh@franz.com (510)548-3600 ==================== Draft Agenda (1) Call to order and introductions. (2) Appointment of a Secretary Pro Tem. (3) Approval of draft agenda. This parliamentary item is required by NCITS procedures. (4) Approval of draft minutes from the 27 July, 1999 meeting. (5) Explanation of the mechanics of NCITS Project Proposals (SD-3) and the several avenues available to J13.: Errata, Revision, Amendments, Supplements, Technical Reports, new separate Standards (e.g. for some particular Lisp library API). (6) Discussion of specific technical areas for standards work. (See notes below.) (7) One or more ballots of the form "Shall J13 undertake drafting a Project Proposal for X to be submitted to NCITS?" Note that these votes are _not_ formal NCITS actions and are not the same as the formal vote that forwards such a proposal on to NCITS. These anticipated votes merely establish J13's internal decision to start drafting one or more particular proposals. (8) Presentation and consideration of Mallery et al: Networked, Incremental Language Extension as Part of the Standards Process. (8) Announcements and new business. (9) Consideration and scheduling of next meeting, etc. ==================== Now here's more explanation: The schedule of this meeting is as tentatively decided at the last meeting. There was sentiment then for a three-day rather than a two-day meeting, and some online discussion subsequently. I find it impossible to anticipate the schedule of the upcoming meeting with enough confidence to decide whether three days will be needed, but since some members will be traveling long distances, and since we will likely only be able to manage an occasional face-to-face meeting, I judge it would be unwise not to plan for the longer meeting. (Also, round trip airfare including a Saturday-might stayover are often much less expensive.) If we decide to adjourn earlier, members will be free to enjoy themselves, or try to fly home standby, or whatever. To accommodate any members who cannot stay for Saturday, I will try so much as possible to arrange all the formal agenda items on the first two days and leave the remaining time to any extended technical discussion, possibly splitting into subgroups. The most important business of this meeting will be (7), voting to start drafting one or more Project Proposals. My desire would be that this would happen in the afternoon of the second day, leaving the third day to launch work on those proposals, but I can make no guarantee. Since J13 has no active Project Plans, our only legitimate business is basically to monitor the state of our area (Lisp) and to react with new Project Proposals when any become appropriate. In particular, NCITS rules _prohibit_ J13 from performing any work on a standard until such a Project Proposal has been approved. This would seem to prohibit us from doing any technical work towards any future standard. However, it is obviously impossible to draft a Project Proposal without having some pretty clear notion of the expected technical content of the proposed work, and that can only be done by technical study and discussion of the subject area. NCITS is well aware of this inconsistency, and these things just have to be treated with judgement and common sense. Therefore, I will rule for this meeting that any technical subject and any technical discussion, even if quite detailed, is legitimate material for this meeting. However, any such discussion must remain grounded with the purpose of scoping an eventual project proposal. Only technical discussion that appears to preestablish the content of some such future standard would be out of order. In practical terms, I don't think this restriction will be much of a limitation at all. There have been any number of subject areas proposed for work. Obviously, the more discussion, investigation, and documentation that is be prepared by proponents of a particular area, the better (and probably more favorably) that area can be considered at the meeting. However, since any area of Lisp is a valid are for work, no potential area will be considered out of bounds for item (6). If a supermajority is convinced that a particular area should be ruled out of consideration, there are normal parliamentary mechanisms to adequate close that discussion and move on. It would be helpful if members who feel strongly in favor of undertaking standards work in one or another technical area would declare themselves and become that advocate for that item: Be prepared to state the technical need for the area of standard work, start collecting a list of specific issues, and start collecting and organizing available resources (e.g. exiting practices), arguments for and against, etc. JCMA in cooperation with others prepared some thoughts on how the Lisp standard process could be accelerated and has asked J13 to consider them. This reflects concerns that the normal NCITS/ANSI process is too slow for the speed of evolution in modern computer systems. NCITS too is quite concerned with this mismatch. The issue is legitimate and proper for us to consider (although I may personally have to play devil's advocate in defense of NCITS procedural requirements). The subject will be given appropriate time for presentation and reaction by the committee, with time allocated as the committee sees fit.