ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG5 N2262 WG5 Business Plan and Convenor's Report for ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22 2026 Plenary PERIOD COVERED BY THIS REPORT: 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2026 SUBMITTED BY: Steve Lionel 1.0 MANAGEMENT SUMMARY 1.1 JTC1/SC22/WG5 STATEMENT OF SCOPE The development and maintenance of ISO/IEC Fortran programming language standards. 1.2 PROJECT REPORT 1.2.1 COMPLETED PROJECTS 1539-1:2023 Fortran 2023 was published November 2023. 1539-1:2023/Cor 1:2026, Corrigendum 1, was published January 2026. 1.2.2 PROJECTS UNDERWAY 22.02.01.01 Programming Language Fortran - Part 1: Base language The next revision of the Fortran standard, referred to as Fortran 2028, entered the CD phase on June 28, 2026. This is consistent with the schedule WG5 published in 2024. Publication is planned for the second half of 2028. The primary responsibility for maintenance of the base language has been delegated to INCITS/Fortran. 22.02.02 Programming Language Fortran - Part 2: Varying Length Character Strings Part 2 is recommended for withdrawal in the SR initiated April 14, 2026. Most features provided by Part 2 have been subsumed by deferred-length allocatable character variables in Fortran 2008. The remaining functionality is included in Fortran 2023. 1.2.3 CANCELLED PROJECTS None. 1.2.4 CO-OPERATION AND COMPETITION WG5 cooperates closely with the INCITS/Fortran Technical Committee, to whom it has delegated the technical development of Fortran as well as its maintenance. There is also contact and or liaison with several organizations including OpenMP Architecture Review Board MPI Forum IFIP WG2.5 - Numerical Software INCITS/C - C INCITS/C++ - C++ with several of the INCITS/Fortran and WG5 members and vendors also being members of the other organizations. Many of those responsible for the development of commercial Fortran compilers are members of INCITS/Fortran and/or WG5. Several members of WG5 collaborated with WG23 on the creation of a "Fortran Annex" for that project. This resulted in ISO/IEC DIS 24772-8, whose status is "Resolving DIS comments". There are no competitive activities. 2.0 PERIOD REVIEW 2.1 MARKET REQUIREMENTS Fortran is the language of choice for much scientific, engineering, and economic programming, particularly for very large programs that have evolved over many years. Cray, Intel and NAG now have full support for Fortran 2018. Other compilers have various degrees of completeness of Fortran 2003, 2008, 2018 and 2023. Most major Fortran compiler vendors are represented either on WG5 or its Primary Development Body, INCITS/Fortran, as are three of the major research establishments that rely on Fortran for their scientific computing. In addition to vendor-supplied and specific mailing lists, an active web site (fortran-lang.org) and discussion list have been established to develop tools and ideas for future Fortran revisions. All these diverse sources are being used to guide the development of the language, both through revisions to the base language Standard, and through other related standards and technical reports. 2.2 ACHIEVEMENTS A CD for the next revision was submitted in June 2026. 2.3 RESOURCES As elsewhere in the Standardization world, it is becoming increasingly difficult to persuade employers to provide the necessary funding for Standards activity. Most of the technical work involved in developing Standards and Technical Reports is performed by INCITS/Fortran under the strategic direction of WG5. WG5 itself carries out much of its discussions via email, with an annual meeting, usually during the summer, and occasional other meetings at critical stages in the development of the base language standard. 3.0 FOCUS FOR NEXT WORK PERIOD 3.1 DELIVERABLES The CD for the next revision was submitted in June 2026. WG5 will review comments when they become available. The goal is to publish the next revision in the second half of 2028. 3.2 STRATEGIES The current schedule for this revision is contained in ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG5/N2248; it proposes publication in 2028. 3.3 RISKS For more than twenty years, WG5 meetings have been held jointly with INCITS/Fortran to optimize its use of human resources. Unfortunately, in 2024 INCITS enforced a new rule forbidding its committees from meeting jointly with any other committee. Given the nearly complete overlap between WG5 and INCITS/Fortran, this artificial restriction greatly complicated our plans for the 2024, 2025 and 2026 meetings. We made it work, but it was a less efficient use of our time. Even more unfortunate, INCITS has issued a more restrictive policy regarding participation in INCITS/Fortran work by those who are also members of a non-US National Body. It remains uncertain how much this will affect our work. A significant risk is the current political climate in the US, which has discouraged non-US WG5 members from fully participating in the meetings held in the US. WG5 s tradition is to alternate meetings between North America and the rest of the world. As the 2024 meeting was held in the US, the 2025 meeting was initially planned for Helsinki, Finland, but resources for that became unavailable, so it was again held in the US. The 2026 meeting was held in Coventry, England, where we had strong participation. As compensation for the 2025 meeting relocation, the 2027 meeting is planned for Bergen, Norway. As far as possible, WG5 tries to anticipate technical comments during international ballots by holding informal ballots of its members before any documents are submitted for ballot. Nevertheless, unexpected technical and editorial comments can always delay the planned schedule. 3.4 OPPORTUNITIES WG5 has made extensive use of email for over 20 years to speed up technical development. Documents are now distributed by ISO Documents. An open web site is used to provide non-technical, and other publicly available, information to interested parties. In addition to speeding up the distribution of documents, the use of electronic distribution and communication systems also provides many other benefits, such as the ability to rapidly carry out informal straw ballots. 3.5 WORK PROGRAM PRIORITIES WG5's priority activity for 2026-2027 is resolve comments received on the CD (and DIS) with an aim to publication in 2028. A Corrigendum 2 for the 2023 revision is also likely to be developed. 4. OTHER ITEMS 4.1 POSSIBLE ACTION REQUESTS AT THE FORTHCOMING PLENARY WG5 asks SC22 for permission to include paragraph numbers in the DIS/FDIS of the Fortran standard. The standard is a large document, with many long sections, and it is often helpful to be able to reference the specific paragraph relevant to a question about the text. 4.2 PROJECT MANAGERS ISO/IEC 1539-1: Malcolm Cohen, UK ISO/IEC 1539-2: John Reid, UK 4.3 ELECTRONIC DOCUMENT DISTRIBUTION INCITS/Fortran: https://j3-fortran.org/ WG5: https://wg5-fortran.org/ ISO Documents: https://sd.iso.org/documents/ui/#!/browse/iso/iso-iec-jtc-1/iso- iec-jtc-1-sc-22/iso-iec-jtc-1-sc-22-wg-5 4.4 RECENT MEETINGS 2025/06 Berkeley, CA, USA 2026/06 Coventry, England 4.5 FUTURE MEETINGS 2027/06 Bergen, Norway Note that WG5 normally meets annually, with extra meetings being held as/when necessary to process ballot comments or other high priority activities that do not accord with the regular meeting schedule. WG5's Primary Development Body, INCITS/Fortran, meets three times each year. Other work is carried out online.