ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG5-N1922

                       BRITISH STANDARDS INSTITUTION                  
                 COMMITTEE ON PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES (IST/5)

          UK National Activity Report presented to the meeting of
ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG5 (Fortran), Markham, ON, Canada on June 25 - 29, 2012 

Membership and meetings
There are 18 members, including observers, of the BSI Fortran
Panel. One member of the BSI Panel is also a member of J3 and one
member is WG5 convenor and an alternate member of J3.  The panel
meets only when there are issues to be resolved which cannot be
decided otherwise. There have been no meetings since the last WG5
meeting.

Malcolm Cohen, a member of the panel, was amongst the 2011 recipients
of the IEC 1906 award which is given for 'exceptional current
achievements of experts'.

JTC1 and SC22 ballots
The UK vote in the ballot on PDTS 29113 was 'no' with five pages of
reasons; most of the UK suggestions were accepted.

In the systematic review of ISO/IEC 1539-2:2000 (Varying length
character strings) the panel's recommendation was to stabilize.  This
was somehow transmogrified into 'confirm' in the final JTC1 vote.
This change did not affect the overall result.

In the ballot on the first Technical Corrigendum for Fortran 2008 the
UK vote was approval.

British Fortran Standards
As noted in previous reports, BSI often reissues ISO standards as
national standards.  The British versions of TR 15580 and TR 15581
have at last been withdrawn but the counterpart of ISO/IEC 1539-3:1999
is still a formal standard.  Moreover, BSI is still offering for sale
at full price withdrawn Fortran standards and TRs from Fortran 77
onwards.  The panel is urging BSI to review this policy.

Activity
Since the last WG5 meeting the principal activity of members of the
panel has been to participate in the various ongoing discussions in
WG5.  The panel has also produced a position paper on the revision
of Fortran 2008.  This is document WG5-N1923.

Acknowledgement
The BSI Fortran Panel gratefully acknowledges financial support from
the British Computer Society Membership Board.

David Muxworthy
BSI IST/5/-/5 (Fortran) Convenor
June 18, 2012