New US Rep to ISO C

[Paul Jackson]

In article <6.UUL1.3#5077 at aussie.UUCP> rex at aussie.UUCP writes:
> At this stage, the 
>chances of having identical ANSI and ISO standards is very very good.
>(I have also been a member of X3J11 since December 1984.)

	I was at the Seattle ISO meeting as the Canadian representative, and
unfortunately the above is a little optimistic.  The Danish are quite
unhappy, mostly because of trigraphs but also because they (or at least their
representative) seem to feel that the X3J11 committee hasn't cooperated
closely enough with the ISO body.  They certainly stated their position as
being opposed to the adoption of the standard and they were planning to try
and rally the other Scandinavian countries to their support.

	The British are also very iffy.  A compromise position was reached
at the meeting that the representative thought he could sell to the British
WG14 group.  Unfortunately, that group is only an advisory group to the SC22
body who casts the vote, and the British representative was a lot less
certain that he could convince them.

	It is my understanding (I'm not completely sure on all this), that
if there are more than 2 negative votes internationally then the ISO will NOT
adopt the Ansi draft as the international standard (ie, they vote by a form
of modified consensus).  In that case, the standards will be different OR
there will not be an ISO standard.  I personally feel that the Canadian
interest would be better served by having NO ISO standard as opposed to
having a different standard than the ANSI standard (this is clearly NOT an
official Canadian position).
-- 

				Paul Jackson
				HCR Corporation
				Toronto, Ontario
				(utzoo|utcsri)!hcr!paul