From: anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Martin Ertl)
Subject: Electronic Availability of dpANS
Organization: Institut fuer Computersprachen, Technische Universitaet Wien
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 17:12:46 GMT

I just read the following announcement about the electronic
availability of the dpANS LISP standard. Perhaps now we can have dpANS
Forth electronically? (I'm still unwilling to pay $65 for something
that will be wastepaper in a few weeks:-)  On the other hand, they
don't want email review comments for LISP, so perhaps they are
selective about distributing their candies:-)

- anton

In article <1763hgINN7lm@early-bird.think.com>, barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin) writes:
|> Date: Sat, 22 Aug 1992 02:11-0400
|> From: Kent M Pitman <KMP@STONY-BROOK.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
|> 
|> The administrative issues are now resolved and the dpANS Common Lisp spec 
|> is now accessible online by anonymous ftp.
|> 
|> How to Obtain Your Copy
|> 
|>  The files are on the machine named BETA.XEROX.COM in "/pub/cl/document/*", 
|>  and can be retrieved by anonymous ftp.  You may or may not want all of
|>  these files.  The file Reviewer-Notes.text in that directory contains
|>  IMPORTANT INFORMATION that EVERYONE should read BEFORE ftp'ing the
|>  other files, especially since the document is quite large and the
|>  information contained in Reviewer-Notes.text might cause you to realize
|>  you only need a subset of the other files.  Among other things, it
|>  tells you
|>    - The nature of the files in the directory.
|>    - What the formal status of these files is.
|>    - Important caveats for those who choose to go with online 
|>      rather than hardcopy access.
|>    - How to make Public Review comments.
|>    - Who to contact with administrative questions.
|> 
|> Background Information about the Administrative Issues
|> 
|>  Numerous people have inquired about why there were delays in announcing
|>  the FTP address for this data.  It was suggested by some that it was an
|>  economic issue (e.g., that CBEMA receives royalties on the hardcopy
|>  sold by Global Engineering Documents, Inc.).  I have been in direct
|>  discussion with the people at X3 and they tell me that it is true that
|>  they do receive such royalties, but they were basically willing to
|>  overlook that issue in order to satisfy our needs.  The real reasons
|>  for the delay were the following, which I consider quite legitimate and 
|>  was glad to see being addressed:
|> 
|>    - There was an issue of making sure that people understood which
|>      sources of data are reliable.  Standards bodies make their living
|>      on being a standard source of information, and that is somewhat at
|>      odds with the fact that data can be modified (both accidentally
|>      and deliberately) as it moves about the net.  They were not
|>      concerned with suppressing access; rather, they were concerned that
|>      people who had access should understand the difference between
|>      getting random bits off of the net and getting a
|>      known-to-be-official copy.
|> 
|>    - The normal procedure for standards is that if you order a
|>      standard (in hardcopy) or you make a review comment, then you are
|>      automatically registered to receive future notifications about the
|>      progress of that standard--in particular, whether there are future
|>      public review periods.  Anonymous online access by its nature
|>      doesn't provide for registering yourself, so people getting online
|>      access need to know they won't be provided with this service.
|> 
|>  After discussing these matters with the X3 folks, we've arrived at what
|>  we think is a proper compromise, which is to just make full disclosure
|>  of these caveats and let people decide what's the best solution for
|>  themselves.  The disclosure information is in the file Reviewer-Notes.text
|>  mentioned above, so you can see that file for further details.
|> 
|>  The people I spoke to at X3 mentioned that this is their first
|>  experiment with this issue of online access and they were somewhat
|>  unprepared to deal with the onslaught of requests they received.  It's
|>  a learning experience for them, and I've been quite impressed with the
|>  way they've been handling it thus far.  They do have a lot to learn, but 
|>  compared to a lot of bureaucracies I've seen, I think they're being 
|>  remarkably open minded in the ways they're looking at things.  Their
|>  primary concerns have not been blind adherence to established policies
|>  for policy's sake, but rather thoughtful concern about principles of 
|>  fairness and quality--the things a good standards organization should 
|>  be about.  So if you have interactions with them, please show proper
|>  amounts of patience, courtesy, and thanks for the professionalism and
|>  hard work they've put in to cut through a lot of red tape for us in a
|>  very short time.  After all, we want online access to happen increasingly
|>  in the future, and one way to help assure that is to try where possible
|>  to make it a pleasant experience for them.
|> 
|>  Note that they are still not prepared to handle e-mail public comments
|>  and want all Public Review comments in hardcopy.  I know they have
|>  additional legitimate concerns relating to use of e-mail for Public Review
|>  and I strongly suggest we leave that entire issue alone for this round,
|>  and let them cope with that as a separate experiment another time in the 
|>  future.
|> 
|> Happy reviewing.
|>  -kmp
|> 
|> P.S. from barmar: As far as I know, there is no ftp-mail server for these
|> documents.  The standard is very large (1300 printed pages, over 3MB of TeX
|> source, and 4MB of DVI files (which would have to be uuencoded for
|> mailing)), so it would probably not be appropriate to email it.
|> -- 
|> Barry Margolin
|> System Manager, Thinking Machines Corp.
|> 
|> barmar@think.com          {uunet,harvard}!think!barmar

-- 
M. Anton Ertl                    Some things have to be seen to be believed
anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at Most things have to be believed to be seen