From: stephe@usenix.org (Stephen R. Walli)
Newsgroups: comp.std.unix
Subject: Standards Update: The Elusive JTC1
Date: 29 Dec 1992 14:23:34 -0800
Organization: USENIX Standards Watchdog Committee
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Submitted-by: stephe@usenix.org (Stephen R. Walli)

John Hill  <hill@prc.unisys.com> reports on JTC1:


Quite often in reading articles concerning standards for information
technology the term ``JTC1'' is encountered.  This article defines the
term, describes its activities, and puts JTC1 in context.

Until late 1988 there were multiple, confusing processes for
developing worldwide standards for information technology.  Some
standards, such as those for equipment and electrotechnical matters,
were developed by the IEC.  IEC is the acronym for the French
equivalent of the ``International Electro-technical Commission.''
Other standards, such as those for media and programming languages,
were developed under the auspices of ISO.  ISO is the commonly used
name for the French ``international standards organization.''

The source of the confusion about ISO and IEC was largely at the
detailed level of standards development, and stemmed from the fact
that there was overlap of the work of the two organizations.

In the middle 1980's, thanks largely to the efforts of Ed Lohse, late
of Burroughs Corporation, activities to rationalize the situation were
started in earnest.  The product of these activities is the ISO/IEC
Joint Technical Committee 1, or JTC1.

JTC1 is the first, and currently the only, technical committee that is
jointly managed by ISO and IEC.  Devising the scheme for joint
management of JTC1 was a formidable task.  Here were two organizations
whose generalized aims were similar but operated in dissimilar
fashions in key procedural areas.

The situation was sufficiently complex that they decided that separate
procedures for JTC1 were to be developed and approved.  This document
is known as the JTC1 Directives.  (The JTC1 Directives can be obtained
from the JTC1 secretariat, ANSI.)

So much for the framework.  Now for the current organization and
program of work of JTC1 and its subgroups.

First, you must understand that the members of JTC1 are referred to as
member bodies.  There are two types of member bodies: national bodies,
and liaisons.  There are 42 national member bodies. (Twenty-four are
primary, and 18 are observer).  As an example, the USA, as represented
by ANSI, is a national body member of JTC1.  There are others
including France (AFNOR), Germany (DIN), and Sweden (SII).

The matter of liaison members is a bit more complicated.  There are 14
internal liaisons.  These are subgroups of ISO or IEC that have
interest in the work of JTC1.  There are also 19 external liaisons.
ECMA, the European Computer Manufacturers Association, is a
representative example of a liaison member of JTC1.  One interesting
sidelight to this is that most nations have some sort of umbrella-like
standards organization that can be designated as the country's
representative in JTC1.  These national umbrella standards
organizations operate within their own countries according to their
own rules and procedures.  JTC1, while insulated from member
countries' internal operations, is nonetheless aware of them.

So the membership of JTC1 is either national (i.e., by country) or
notified liaison.  There is no concept of ``organizational'' or
corporate membership.  Similarly, there are no individual members.
Many national bodies operate internally on the basis of organizational
membership.  Some operate on the basis of individual membership.  The
umbrella organization in the USA, ANSI, accredits organizations and
committees to develop standards for it.  Membership in some of these
is organizational, such as X3.  In some it is individual, such as the
IEEE, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers.

For the most part the work of JTC1 itself is managerial in nature.
JTC1 focuses on matters like:

   - project initiation,

   - subgroup establishment (and disposal,)

   - document approval.

The technical work of JTC1 is really accomplished by its subgroups.
Broadly speaking, there are three types of JTC1 subgroup.  These are
special working groups (SWG), study groups (SG), and subcommittees
(SC).

SWGs are typically established to perform some specific task and are
often non-technical in nature.  Examples include the SWG-P that deals
with JTC1 procedures, and SWG-FS that deals with functional standards
(often called international standardized profiles, or ISPs).  [Ed. -
SWG-FS is sometimes referred to simply as SGFS.] SWG-FS has developed
Technical Report (TR) 10000 that describes procedures for the
development of open systems interconnection (OSI) ISPs.  SWG-FS is
currently revising TR10000 in order that it incorporate procedures for
managing the development of ISPs for open systems environments.

There have been two special study groups established by JTC1.  Each
was given a specific charter and assigned specific deliverables.
Neither exists today since they completed their assignments.  The two
study groups were MSG-1 (management study group) and TSG-1 (technical
study group).  TSG-1 focused on interfaces for application portability.

The most enduring subgroup type is the subcommittee (SC).  SC's tend
to be organized around functional topics.  An SC's typically focuses
on a single technical subject area.  The detailed standards
development work of an SC takes place within the working groups (WG)
within an SC.

One way to better grasp the activities of JTC1 is to group the SCs.
There are four convenient groupings:

   - application elements,

   - systems,

   - equipment and media,

   - systems support.

A complete list of these SCs follows the article, grouped according to
the above list.

The scope of JTC1 is extensive.  Virtually all standards used in
modern information technology systems receive their worldwide
endorsement by JTC1.  This has simply been an overview. There are a
multitude of detailed projects that collectively specify the full
depth of the technical program of JTC1.

ISO/IEC JTC1 Subcommittees:

   - Application Elements

     SC1 (Vocabulary): To collect and coordinate the usage of
      terminology by all groups within JTC1. The Dictionary Group!

     SC7 (Software Engineering): To define standardized tools to
      development software.

     SC14 (Representation of Data Elements): To codify data elements
      such that their common definitions can be used to exchange data.

     SC22 (Languages and Application Environments):  Programming
      Language and Operating Environment standards.

   - Systems

     SC6 (Telecommunications and Information Exchange):  Standards for
      telecommunications and OSI, (systems functions, procedures and
      parameters, as well as the conditions for their use,) for the
      four OSI layers that support the transport service.  Done in
      effective cooperation with CCITT.

     SC18 (Text and Office Systems): Standardization of functionality
      that simplifies text editing and other office related subjects.

     SC21 (OSI Information Retrieval, Transfer and Management):
      Development of standards for the upper layers of the Open
      Systems Interconnection (OSI) model.  Also included are database
      management systems, information resource management systems
      (IRDS), and open distributed processing standards (ODP).

     SC26 (Microprocessor Systems): Development of standards used in
      microprocessor systems including basic hardware, bus and allied
      interfaces.

   - Equipment and Media

     SC11 (Flexible Magnetic Media for Digital Data Interchange):
      Development of standards for diskettes and cartridges.  The
      unrecorded (raw media) as well as the recording standards are
      both included.

     SC15 (Labeling and File Structure): Standardization of file
      allocation and directory information used for all types of
      recorded media.

     SC17 (Identification Cards and Related Devices):  Standards for
      cards such as credit and debit cards including the physical,
      electrical, and magnetic properties.  Intelligent (IC) cards are
      also covered.

     SC23 (Optical Digital Data Disks): Development of optical media
      standards including the unrecorded (raw) media as well as the
      recording onto and reading from those media.  Both write once
      (WORM) and rewritable media are included.

     SC28 (Office Equipment): Standardization of equipment commonly
      used in office settings.  This includes printers and the quality
      of their output.

   - Systems Support

     SC2 (Character Sets and Information Coding): Standards for the
      bit and byte coded representation of elements of various
      identified types of information, for interchange mainly at the
      application level, i.e. all aspects of sets of graphic and
      control characters,

     SC27 (Security Techniques): Development of standards for
      security, such as encryption and verification,

     SC29 (Coded Representation of Picture, Audio and
      Multimedia/Hypermedia Information): Standardization of complex
      (i.e., more difficult than characters) data representation.
      Data compression without the loss of information is also handled
      here.

Volume-Number: Volume 30, Number 6