Messages from Charles F. Goldfarb, Harvey Bingham, and Kamie Roberts
From Charles@SGMLsource.com Fri Oct 11 15:40:39 1996
Newsgroups: comp.text.sgml
Subject: Important: FIPS 152 will be withdrawn but has no effect on SGML
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 19:13:47 GMT
Organization: Information Management Consulting
Reply-To: Charles@SGMLsource.com
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NIST has announced that is withdrawing FIPS 152, the U.S. government Federal
Information Processing Standard for using SGML. Vendors and users of SGML should
be aware that this is not a cause for concern.
NIST is actually withdrawing *ALL* FIPS except for those relating to security,
which they are required by law to keep. In fact, NIST is withdrawing from the
standards business entirely. (Strange, for an organization that used to be
called the National Bureau of Standards ...). Instead of Federal standards, the
U.S. government is switching to the use of International and U.S. standards.
Bottom line: The withdrawal of FIPS 152 does not in any way indicate a lessening
of U.S. government support for SGML. ISO 8879 will now be used directly, rather
than being profiled by a FIPS.
(Thanks to Steve DeRose for alerting us to this situation, and to Dr. James
Mason of the U.S. Dept. of Energy and Jerry Smith of the Defense Information
Standards Agency for providing insights into the government's motivation.)
--
Charles F. Goldfarb * Information Management Consulting * +1(408)867-5553
13075 Paramount Drive * Saratoga CA 95070 * USA
International Standards Editor * ISO 8879 SGML * ISO/IEC 10744 HyTime
Prentice-Hall Series Editor * CFG Series on Open Information Management
--
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From hbingham@ACM.org Tue Oct 15 10:18:22 1996
Date: Tue, 15 Oct 1996 10:55:40 -0400
To: masonjd@ornl.gov, SMITH5J@ncr.disa.mil
From: Harvey Bingham <hbingham@ACM.org>
Subject: Re: Important: FIPS 152 will be withdrawn but has no effect on
SGML
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On Fri, 11 Oct 1996 19:13:47 GMT Charles wrote:
>NIST has announced that is withdrawing FIPS 152, the U.S. government Federal
>Information Processing Standard for using SGML. Vendors and users of SGML
should
>be aware that this is not a cause for concern.
>...Instead of Federal standards, the
>U.S. government is switching to the use of International and U.S. standards.
So each agency can decide which standards to use, and with what application
profiles. "U.S. standards" can well include commercial "standards" such as
PDF or WordPerfect 4.1; or "International standards" such as ODA or ISO12083.
>Bottom line: The withdrawal of FIPS 152 does not in any way indicate a
>lessening of U.S. government support for SGML. ISO 8879 will now be used
>directly, rather than being profiled by a FIPS.
FIPS 152 did define an SGML Declaration for common use that excluded many
SGML features, so those features were less-supported. Agency free-will may
mean balcanization, each with different requirements, so the SGML market
will have even less commonality.
>(Thanks to Steve DeRose for alerting us to this situation, and to Dr. James
>Mason of the U.S. Dept. of Energy and Jerry Smith of the Defense Information
>Standards Agency for providing insights into the government's motivation.)
Will each agency have to establish their equivalent of DISA?
Regards/Harvey Bingham
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From Charles@SGMLsource.com Thu Oct 24 23:23:46 1996
Date: Fri, 25 Oct 1996 03:36:17 +0000 (GMT)
From: Charles@SGMLsource.com (Charles F. Goldfarb)
Subject: Re: Important: FIPS 152 will be withdrawn but has no effect on SGML
To: [...] Kamie Roberts <roberts@dsys.ncsl.nist.gov>
Reply-to: Charles@SGMLsource.com
Message-id: <326fe69e.8927050@news.alink.net>
Organization: Information Management Consulting
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To the SGML community:
I recently posted a note alerting the SGML community to the withdrawal of FIPS
152, and the fact that it did not indicate a lessening of U.S. Government
support for SGML. NIST has sent me a note, which I am attaching below, that does
not contradict this important assertion, but does clarify that they are not
withdrawing completely from standardization (as I was, apparently, inaccurately
advised).
Best regards,
Charles
....................................
In response to your posting to the comp.text.sgml newsgroup
regarding the withdrawal of FIPS 152, dated 11 Oct 1996:
NIST continues to be very active in standards-related work in many
areas, including information technology. Due to recent legislation,
such as the Technology Transfer Act, NIST will only be promulgating FIPS
where there are unique Federal agency requirements. Where a voluntary
industry standard is already in place, there is no need to duplicate
this within a FIPS. Federal agencies are encouraged to use industry
standards, where appropriate. Where there are unique Federal
requirements, such as security, however, NIST will promulgate FIPS.
NIST is currently in the process of scrutinizing existing FIPS to
determine which ones are inappropriate, and should be withdrawn. NIST
will continue to be active in the voluntary standards process,
especially with respect to the NIST mission of metrology.
Please distribute this note to others as appropriate. Thank you for
this opportunity to clarify the NIST position.
Kamie Roberts
NIST
kroberts@nist.gov
--
Charles F. Goldfarb * Information Management Consulting * +1(408)867-5553
13075 Paramount Drive * Saratoga CA 95070 * USA
International Standards Editor * ISO 8879 SGML * ISO/IEC 10744 HyTime
Prentice-Hall Series Editor * CFG Series on Open Information Management
--