ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG5 N2139

                   Convener's report from SC22 meeting,
                       London, 14-15 August 2017

                       John Reid, 16 August 2017

1. Corrigenda
Despite the best efforts of the SC22 chair following SC22's resolution last 
year, there has been no change to the ISO policy that there be at most 
two corrigenda to a standard and that the standard addressed be at most three 
years old. The rule is suitable for the vast majority of JTC1 standards 
because they are small. The SC22 secretary assured us that sympathetic 
consideration will be given to each request for an exception to be made.
My recommendation therefore is for WG5 to issue a corrigendum as soon as
the number of corrections justifies it. SC22 continues to feel strongly 
on the issue and passed this resolution unanimously:

"JTC 1/SC 22 notes that Resolution 11 from the 2016 JTC 1 Plenary has not 
resulted in further action.
   SC 22 points out as a matter of urgency that a technical corrigendum is the 
only way to make a retroactive change to an existing edition of a standard, 
allowing business contracts pointing to a specific edition of a standard to 
receive the benefits of corrections and clarifications. This makes the 
technical corrigendum a necessary component for establishing and maintaining 
nondiscriminatory trade practices.
   SC 22 urges JTC 1 to change the JTC 1 supplement to remove the limitation 
on timing and number of technical corrigenda.
   The SC 22 Chair is requested to present this resolution to the October 2017 
JTC 1 Plenary."

2. ISO meetings platform
ISO has introduced an electronic meetings platform, which I have chosen to 
ignore because it does not address any problem that WGs have, but rather gives 
them difficulties. Unfortunately, it will be obligatory from 1 October. Only
those registered with their country will be able to participate. Presumably, 
the hope is that more WG members will pay dues to their country organizations. 
While we continue to hold meetings jointly with J3, those not registered with 
their country will be able to participate as J3 visitors. WG23 
(Vulnerabilities) feels specially threatened by the new rule. 

3. Change of WG5 Convener
Steve Lionel was appointed as WG5 convener and a vote of appreciation was 
made to me.

4. Remote participation
Only one convener participated remotely and he did this by phoning in and 
talking about his report. He was not able to participate in the other 
discussions. However, I was assured by the incoming chair of SC22 that he 
intended to enable full remote participation. 

5. Linux Standard
SC22's Linux Standard Implementation Study Group, which was renewed last
year, has found that the publicly available specification can be published 
as an ISO/IEC standard by placing it within an ISO/IEC wrapper. This conforms 
with the gnu licence. A new Other Working Group, with a one-year life, was 
established to do the work because it is expected that a year will be long 
enough whereas a Working Group has a long life. The 20 parts of the 2006 
standard were artificially grouped into 8 parts. The new standard will have 
20 parts.  

6. Part 2 of the ISO/IEC directives
Catherine Bennett, an ISO editor, spoke on part 2 of the ISO/IEC directives
and answered questions. The only points that I noted as possibly affecting our
new standard are that the list of changes should appear in the Foreword rather than 
the Introduction and that it is now recommended that notes appear immediately after
the paragraph to which they appear. I was reassured that we would not be required 
to make changes to conform with these points.