ACM TSC Meeting Minutes

Feb. 7, 1996

recorded by Roy Rada with assistance from Jim Moore

Meeting occurred in Board Room 110 of Washington National Hilton Hotel

Meeting called to order at 9:30 by Jim Moore

Present Irving Montanez, Chris Haynes, David Emery, James Moore, and Roy Rada

Agenda approved.

Minutes of last meeting approved.

Action item status:

Action items 3, 4, and 5 are considered closed. We will close items 1 and 2 before end of meeting.

Member reports:

Irving reviewed the status of HDTV.

Haynes did look into college board advanced placement exam for computing. Haynes has studied the C++ and Java situation. Moore thanked Haynes for maintaining TSC web page.

Emery noted that companies now are more interested in consortia for standards of products. SDOs are mainly relevant now for process standards.

Klensin described the history of ACM involvement in IISB. His reported noted that opportunity that ACM had to positively influence the openness policy. Klensin is also a member of the Internet Architecture Board.

Rada reviewed his StandardView liaison, relationship to SIGBIO, and again encouraged collaborators for CACM columns.

Moore reviewed his work on software process standards and ISO JTC1. There exist project management standards that can be applied to software rather than recreating. He noted that people are looking to principles of process as one standard and then details as another standard.

At 11:30 Moore and Rada discussed IEEE/ACM Software Engineering as a Profession Joint Committee. They noted efforts to contact and relatively little reply. Rada proposed a Software Engineering Profession Standards Education Certificate. Klensin noted that 25th year ACM documents had advertised professional certification efforts - but that never arose. Rada acknowledged that emphasis would be on knowledge rather than job performance ability.

At 11:50 Moore noted that presentations to SIGs had elicited relatively little response. We are pursuing what this means in terms of what we role we can play in helping SIGs.

12:00 we started on topic of memberships. Moore noted that Rada as Secretary would be renewed as member of TSC since Secretary is chartered member. Montanez and Carson would be shifting from Voting members to Consulting members. We are looking for other members.

Numerous names were suggested as ones that might be added to the list of potential invitees, such as: Brian Meek, someone from SIGGraph or SIGCHI, Lyman Chapin (former chair of SIGCOMM and SC6), Tim Berners-Lee, Keith Moore (U of Tenn, Knoxville, IETF), someone from SC2, Bob Follette, Mario Barbacci, maybe someone from Brazil or elsewhere in South America, Brian Carpenter (CERN, IETF, IBM - responsible for Internet standards), Wendy Rausch-Hinden (in the technology assessment business), John Hill. Moore may also ask the European office of ACM for suggestions and ask the SIGChairs for candidates for members.

At 12:10 Emery led discussion about "Model Policies and Procedures for ACM Participation in Standards Development" in the form of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ). On issue of ACM being an SDO, we noted that such SDO status requires insurance, potentially substantial start-up costs, and subsequently continuous maintenance costs with long-term commitment.

ACM is a member of ANSI. ANSI doesn't vote on standards, at least not on technical grounds. When ANSI votes on a standard, it is only agreeing that an accredited member of ANSI followed the appropriate process. Furthermore, ACM doesn't participate in that aspect of ANSI. What ACM does in ANSI is serve on the ISSB which tries to provide a forum for communication among the various standards developing organizations working in the area of information systems.

We suggest ACM could sponsor conferences to discuss pros and cons at the pre-technological level of a standard. Haynes suggested that we put on the FAQ on the web. Emery said that he would revise and then send back to us the FAQ document. Emery hopes to do this within the next month. After TSC discusses the FAQ on email, then the document would be sent to higher level in ACM for approval.

1:45 Haynes reviewed CS AP Exam. Noted that AP Board already has round of questions in approval process for C++ related exam. Haynes will continue to monitor the situation and also will liaise with Boots Cassel in CSE and the ACM Board of Education.

1:50 Moore discussed reorganization of JTC1 work program that will emphasize programs that have, at least, 5 members that offer substantial involvement in program.

2:00 The IISP or national information infrastructure was discussed with Moore's leadership. Moore and Klensin noted that DeBlasi would like to see ACM involved in IISP. None of the individuals attending were interested in becoming involved. There might be a role for liaison rather than participation.

Klensin explained what IISP is. Klensin explained that IISP is largely attended by SDO members whose goal is to develop framework by which SDOs might guide development of standards for national information infrastructure. Klensin noted that MCI was not participating in IISP because it thought enough standards apparatus already exists. Klensin suggested we suggest a conference call among TSC members, DeBlasi, chair of IISP and Klensin has volunteered to cover cost of conference call.

2:20 Klensin explained how ACM is corporate member of ISSB. ACM has been member of ANSI since its current inception. ISSB focuses on openness. ACM has pushed for openness in ISSB. Most members of ISSB are SDOs and major corporations. ACM is only long-term, constituent-based organization that is a member of ISSB. Plus ACM has long-term retained this principle of openness. ACM has pressured several SDOs to revise their process to make them more open. Moore asked what might ACM's role be in the future. Klensin noted that Memo of Understanding about how SDOs would collaborate was significantly shaped by ACM and that it arises for reconsideration very soon.

2:30 Rada summarized IEEE P1484 and asked what role ACM would play. Emery said that role is to relate to SIGs. Moore said that we want to help SIGs facilitate members interacting with a SDO. SIG3C, SIGCUE, SIGCHI, SIGCSE, SIGCPR, and SIGMIS are examples of SIGs that might be interested in P1484. Klensin noted that P1484 might be of interest to many SIGs and TSC could play a special role. Rada and Haynes will approach this liaison. Rada will draft a "newsletter item" to go to all relevant SIGs to help them decide the extent to which they would like to be involved.

3:20 Moore explained the background of the issue related to Java. He had asked Gargaro and Carson to investigate the standardization issues related to Java and draft a TSC statement suggesting principles for the standardization of Java. Gargaro had provided a draft statement very quickly thereafter (in November); Carson elected to contact the various players and study their viewpoints. He provided a draft in January. Moore asked Klensin to preside over the discussion so that Moore would be free to state his opinions. He then said that he feared it was probably too late to shape the direction of Java standardization because much of the work had already found homes in various SDOs. Emery disagreed saying that input might still be timely. Haynes suggested that it might be appropriate to separate standardization of the Java Virtual Machine from standardization of the language. Moore suggested that the TSC doesn't have the standing to make technical recommendations like that; such recommendations should come from a SIG, in this case, SIGPlan.

Emery said that TSC should try to get corporate ACM support for a position about Java. Klensin agreed with Moore that too late andexplained his view of why it is too late. He said the current Java processes are less standardization efforts than public relations efforts. Klensin said we could try to sabotage the party where it is but then the party would continue elsewhere. Moore said this is not in our best interest.

Montanez suggested that we arrange with SDOs to give copies of Java standards to SIGs. Others noted this might not be reasonable.

Klensin suggested that now would just be time to get prepared for what might happen in a couple of years by getting SIGs to know about the Virtual Machine, the Java language, and the APIs.

Haynes will contact Mathis and Cargill and after understands model will contact SIGPLAN to find whether people there think we need to make emphases about pursuing separately Java Virtual Machine and Java language.

4:05 Klensin suggested that someone create web page with a pointer to ongoing Java standardization.

4:30 to 5:20 p.m. Rada offered a proposal for creation of a Virtual University. Emery said Rada's business plan was inadequate. Klensin said that getting commercial quality web server is $10k per month. Haynes said for education program thatprovides certificate from ACM that big overhead will be required. To do just tutorials maybe will cost too much and not attract enough support. Klensin said that too many competing in this area already. Montanez noted that should do CD-ROMs. There was interest but no commitment of support. The chair encouraged Rada to take his proposal to the SIG Chairs and other interested parties in ACM.

5:20 About budget and getting revenue, TSC has no budget and consensus was that having a budget would not be a good thing. For now all we get is travel reimbursed and that does not require our own budgeting process and we should prefer to avoid dealing with a budget.

We do not schedule another meeting till we learn more about SIGChairs and other plans.

Summary of Action Items:

Moore: Try to get an estimate of what IEEE spends on standards activities.

Klensin: Try to get an estimate of what X3 spends on standards activities.

Moore: Report to SIG Chairs that TSC is working on an FAQ explaining what thing SIGs should do and what things that they should avoid in standards-related activities. Solicit questions and issues from the SIG Chairs.

Moore: Report to SIG Chairs that two of our members are involved in a cross-cutting activity (IEEE P1484, Computer-Based Education and Training). They plan to write a brief article that could be published in the newsletters of SIGs that are interested. The main point is to explain to interested SIG members how they could participate in the activity.

Moore: Ask SIG Chairs for suggestions for new members.

Moore: Set up a conference call among DeBlasi, Klensin, and other interested TSC members (Emery might be interested) in discussing what role TSC and ACM should play in the IISP.

Rada & Haynes: Separately or together write an article about 1484 and provide to SIG editors for publication in their newsletter.

Haynes: Will investigate working with SIGPlan on the idea of cooperating on a position regarding maintaining separation between Java language and Java VM.

Emery and Klensin: In coordination with Rada to draft a column for CACM regarding paying for standards.