ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG5 N1121



To:	WG5 members

From:	Miles Ellis _ Acting Convenor

Subject:	Questionnaire on Preferences for Electronic Document Distribution





At the recent WG5 meeting in Tokyo, 1995-4-17/21, WG5 unanimously endorsed the

principles for electronic distribution of documents that I made in N1077 (Resolution

T6).  These were as follows:



	1.A WG5 server shall be established at a site to be determined;



	2.All WG5 Standing Documents shall be available on the WG5 server;



	3.Prior to each meeting of WG5, and at such other times as are appropriate, the

Convenor shall place all documents for distribution to WG5 members on the

WG5 server;



	4.All WG5 members shall be notified by email of any changes in the

documents available on the WG5 server;



	5.By prior arrangement, any member of WG5 will be sent a diskette (or

diskettes) in one of the agreed formats containing the text of documents

placed on the WG5 server as soon as possible after they have been placed

there.



	6.By prior arrangement, the Head of the Fortran committee of each National

Body which participates in the work of WG5, or a nominated alternative,

will be sent a paper copy of all documents placed on the WG5 server.  He or

she will be responsible for producing and distributing any additional paper

copies required for that National Body's members.



	7.The formal announcement of meetings, the draft agenda, and the minutes of

meetings will be distributed to all members in paper form.



Before moving to electronic distribution, however, it is necessary to ascertain the

preferences of the membership (and, indeed, resolution T6 requested me to do this). 



In this connection, it is worth pointing out that JTC1 has recently issued guidelines for

the electronic distribution of documents (other than draft standards) which state that

the preferred form of distribution is Rich Text Format (RTF), followed by MS Word

(version 2.0 or later) and WordPerfect (version 5.1 or later).  These guidelines have

caused considerable controversy, but they are the officially required format at present. 

Nevertheless, a number of WG5 members have indicated that they would prefer text

files (ASCII), and so I propose to make these available on the server, and on any

diskettes, in addition to any formatted version(s).





I shall, therefore, assume the following default form of document distribution:



A.		Regular WG5 documents



Text and RTF versions of all documents (other than draft standards, etc) will be placed

on the WG5 server, and an email message sent to the WG5 email list announcing any

changes.



B.		Draft Standards, etc



These will be placed on the server in PostScript form (for both A4 and US paper sizes),

in text (ASCII) form, and in the form used by the Editor for working on the document.





I hope that most members will be willing and able to obtain documents in this way. 

However, for some members this may be difficult, or even impossible, and in these

cases one (or more) diskettes will be sent containing regular document distributions

(but probably not draft standards).  Finally, every member body is entitled to ask for a

single copy of documents in paper form for redistribution within their own country _

although I hope that this will be considered to be the exception rather than the rule.



I would be grateful if all members could, therefore, complete the following brief

questionnaire and return it to me by 30th June 1995, preferable by email, but failing

that by fax or post.  I shall assume that anyone who does not reply is happy to use the

default method described above.



Questionnaire on Preferences for Electronic Document Distribution



1.		Is the proposed default method of document distribution

		(i.e. via an ftp server) acceptable to you?					YES



												NO



If the answer to question 1 is NO then please answer the following question:



1a.	Diskettes will be 3.5 inch, High Density (1.4Mb).

		Which format do you require?					   MS-DOS



											  Macintosh



2.		In what format would you prefer documents to be available?

		Please indicate an order of preference for all acceptable formats:



				ASCII text



				RTF



				Word 2.0+ for DOS



				WordPerfect 5.1+ for DOS



				Acrobat



				PostScript



				Other

				(please specify)



3.		Do you have any other comments?









4.		(Heads of National Bodies only)

		Do you require a paper copy of document distributions			YES

		for redistribution within your country?

												NO







Signed:	..................................................................		Country:	......................................





Return to Miles Ellis no later than 30th June 1995.

								Director:  ETRC

Email:  Miles.Ellis@etrc.ox.ac.uk				37-41 Wellington Square

Fax:  +44 1865 270527					Oxford  OX1 2JF

								ENGLAND