Editorial: prologue and introduction

his issue of Standard View is another eclectic mix of standardization, information, and generally interesting articles. As usual, it is meant to provoke, while providing a degree of information about continuing trends in standardization. I trust that you will find some parts of it useful. Apropos of continuing trends, I’d like to examine a new development in standardization-the role of provider of the Publicly Available Specification (PAS). This is of interest because Sun Microsystems recently (March 1997) submitted a proposal to the International Organization for Standardizatiodhternational Electrotechnical Committee Joint Technical Committee 1 (ISO/IEC JTC1) for recognition as a submitter of Publicly Available Specifications. This has myriad implications for the entire standardization arena. A bit of background on the PAS process is necessary. In the early 1990s, the information technology standards developing organizations (SDOs) began to hemorrhage members. As major corporations began to downsize, participation in formal standards organizations began to drop, resulting in fewer members, smaller dues payments, and a decline in startup projects. While the SDOs viewed this trend with concern, they were even more concerned and interested in the spectacular growth of consortia. There were object consortia, open consortia, alphabetic consortia, numeric consortia, and so on and so forth. All these consortia charged large fees to their members-usually the same members who composed the SDOs and were dropping participation in them. At first SDOs took the growth of consortia lightly and treated them as a passing fancy. Over time, however, consortia became firmly established, eclipsing formal SDOs in the most critical area of allmarket acceptance of public specifications, the consortia equivalent of standards. The SDOs needed to reassert their hegemony, and after much thought came up with the idea of the Publicly Available Specification (PAS). A PAS is a product of a consortium, created in accordance with the rules governing the consortium. When the consortium has completed its work and the market has accepted the specification, the consortium can submit the work to an SDOfor acceptance as a standard, if the consortium is recognized as a “Submitter of Public Specifications.” To earn this title, the consortium must answer a detailed questionnaire provided by ISO/IEC JTC1, affirming that its specifications are open, that it will support the specification, and a host of other questions concerning the consortium’s legitimacy and process. As might be expected, most consortia took one look at this process and declined to participate. Most consortia regard themselves as legitimate and do not need the “imprimatur” of IS0 to be successful in the marketplace-which was, after all, the reason that their sponsors were paying the fees. The process requirements of a consortium can be just as severe, possibly more so, as an SDO’s. Additionally, going through the steps necessary to gain the minimal advantage provided by a formally recognized IS0 standard was not, for most consortia, justifiable. As a result, the PAS Submitter program has been a dismal failure, with very few PAS submitted. And of those that were, few mattered to the general market. In the past several years, several significant technology opportunities have arisen, to which the formal groups have not been party: The World Wide Web is the property of the Internet Engineering Task Force and the World Wide Web Consortium. IS0 just recently received its first HTML submission. The standardization of ActiveX was given to a consortium within a consortium (the Active Group inside the Open Group); Netscape contributed JavaScript to ECMA for eventual I S 0 fast-track, but ignored the U.S. national body. HTTP belongs to the IETF, and HTML(the Web language variant of SGML) belongs to the W3C. Multimedia is in the IETF, and several other consortia. This phenomenon has contributed to the decline in interest in the SDOs as well. This is why Sun’s application for acceptance as a submitter of PAS is such a major event for ISO/IEC JTC1, and for I S 0 in general. It is generally understood that if Sun is accepted as a PAS provider, it will submit Java to JTCl for standardization. And Java is the prize of the decade for a standardization organization. It is new, it is interesting, it is fun, and it is proprietary. There is no way around that fact. Sun did not develop Java to create a standard, but to create a product that they could sell to make money. And when a company creates a product, they usually try to keep their competition from getting the same product. This is why there are intellectual property rights and things such as patents. The company’s ultimate intent is to sell a product that other companies can’t or won’t sell, and to make money on the transaction. Not rocket science. In Sun’s defense, Sun was encouraged to submit an application by the management of the SDOs (Sergio Mazza, President of ANSI, announced to the press that an ap-