September X3J11 meeting cancelled

[Doug Gwyn]

In article <2802 at splut.conmicro.com> jay at splut.conmicro.com (Jay "you ignorant splut!" Maynard) writes:
-In article <10646 at smoke.BRL.MIL> gwyn at smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn) writes:
->[...] due to delay in approval of the proposed standard resulting from
->the appeal process initiated by Mr. Hansberry [...]
-What's this? I haven't heard about it. Someone have enough problems with
-the proposal as it wound up to appeal? What's his objection? Enquiring
-minds want to know...

Russell Hansberry submitted his comments on the draft proposed C standard
to the X3 Secretariat during the second formal public review.  Somehow,
X3 managed to lose them without realizing they had done so.  Consequently,
it was not until after the third formal public review had been completed
(resulting in the draft that was forwarded to X3 for eventual ANSI
ratification) that X3J11 heard about Mr. Hansberry's comments.  At the
Seattle X3J11 meeting, a substantial portion of the committee met
separately to consider Mr. Hansberry's comments, pretty much according to
the usual public-review response process with even more care than usual;
Mr. Hansberry and colleague Wayne Albin (I think), who live in the Seattle
area, attended the meeting and were involved in the discussions, both to
ensure that X3J11 fully understood Mr. Hansberry's concerns and in an
attempt to make sure that in turn he understood the committee position on
several of the issues.  Three issues were identified by the review
subgroup as requiring full committee discussion and decision, and these
were brought before the full committee.  In summary, Mr. Hansberry's
issues either had already been addressed during the public review process,
or they were judged not to require any changes to the current draft
standard.  A fourth formal response document, similar to the ones for the
three formal public reviews, was prepared containing the official X3J11
positions on each issue raised by Mr. Hansberry's "lost" letter.  In
effect, Mr. Hansberry was accorded a fourth formal public review of his
very own, using essentially the same procedures as for the other three.

However, Mr. Hansberry was not happy with the response to his issues,
and filed a protest with X3 requesting a full formal procedural review.
As I understand it, he provided X3 with a list of about 40 items of
complaint, some of them concerning technical issues and some concerning
procedural issues.  The rules governing the public review process
apparently allow such an appeal; consequently, X3 is reballotting on the
(unchanged) draft proposed standard, taking Mr. Hansberry's technical
points into consideration.  If X3 does not decide in this ballot that
the technical issues need to be revisited by X3J11, then only the
procedural matters remain open to appeal, and as I understand it, nobody
except Mr. Hansberry believes they have any merit.  Certainly I think
that his concerns were given more than a fair hearing by X3J11, and I'm
probably among the committee members most sensitive to such
considerations.  (As editor of the response documents, I've had to be.)

Unless something unexpected occurs, I think the net outcome will simply
be a delay of several months in final ANSI approval of the proposed
standard.

DISCLAIMER:  The above represents the situation as I understand it.
It is not to be taken as any sort of official X3 or X3J11 statement.