I'd like to take a part in the WG21's meeting in July 2009 as an
observer.
Is this meeting open for public or do I have to meet any criteria?

Regards
Piotr Dobrogost

--
[ comp.std.c++ is moderated.  To submit articles, try just posting with ]
[ your news-reader.  If that fails, use mailto:std-c++@netlab.cs.rpi.edu]
[              --- Please see the FAQ before posting. ---               ]
[ FAQ: http://www.comeaucomputing.com/csc/faq.html                      ]

"Piotr Dobrogost" <pd@1.google.dobrogost.pl> wrote in message
news:b57ab477-c996-489c-a3f0-a516ed0e4de3@k41g2000yqh.googlegroups.com...
> I'd like to take a part in the WG21's meeting in July 2009 as an
> observer.
> Is this meeting open for public or do I have to meet any criteria?

I am not a committee member, not have I ever taken part. However, to the
best of my knowledge, based on information provided by Boost, and a few
committee members themselves, here is how it works.

(Any committee members are encouraged to correct any erroneous statements I
make.)

Technically speaking, the meetings are not open to the public. Now, anybody
can become a committee member, and thus can attend the meetings.

In the alternative, under the rules of the committee (being a weird mixture
of the rules of several standards organizations), a small number of
"technical experts" may attend. The definition of technical expert would
allow for most reasonablly experienced C++ programmers, or generally
anybody
who knows C++ (or at least the C++ standard) well enough that they could
follow the dicussions.

Now can you just show up at the meeting? I'm not certain about that. I'm
under the impression that if you did just show up, the committee is not is
not likely to turn you away, unless there is just not enough space (too
many
techincal experts already present), you are disruptive, etc. However, I
believe that it is proper to first announce your intention of attending.
How
one does that is not known to me, Although hopefully a committee member
will
comment on this.



--
[ comp.std.c++ is moderated.  To submit articles, try just posting with ]
[ your news-reader.  If that fails, use mailto:std-c++@netlab.cs.rpi.edu]
[              --- Please see the FAQ before posting. ---               ]
[ FAQ: http://www.comeaucomputing.com/csc/faq.html                      ]

Joe Smith wrote:

>
> Now can you just show up at the meeting? I'm not certain about that. I'm
> under the impression that if you did just show up, the committee is not is
> not likely to turn you away, unless there is just not enough space (too
> many
> techincal experts already present), you are disruptive, etc. However, I
> believe that it is proper to first announce your intention of attending.
> How
> one does that is not known to me, Although hopefully a committee member
> will
> comment on this.
>
>
>
The rules changed recently (until last year WG21 and J16 met together as
a collocated meeting. Both ANSI (or whatever it calls itself now) and
JTC1 changed their rules with the result that WG21 now meets as always
but with an unlimited number of members of each national delegation
(there used to be a limit that made it necessary to circumvent the rules
in order for the large number of US based experts to attend.)

Strictly speaking only members of national delegations can attend an ISO
meeting along with technical experts invited by the committee and
liaisons from other ISO committees. In practice I think we will continue
to welcome anyone interested enough to attend.

Email PJ Plauger who is the convenor of WG21 asking if you may attend
and I would be very surprised if the answer was anything other than
'yes, you are welcome.'  However note that WG21 is heavily over-worked
at the moment so things that might distract from progress will be
unwelcome. IOWs if you need help following discussions then you would be
well advised to ask for it at refreshment breaks etc. That isn't to say
that questions are necessarily unwelcome but you do need some expertise
and sensitivity to avoid asking questions during meeting time that
everyone else knows the answer to.

--
[ comp.std.c++ is moderated.  To submit articles, try just posting with ]
[ your news-reader.  If that fails, use mailto:std-c++@netlab.cs.rpi.edu]
[              --- Please see the FAQ before posting. ---               ]
[ FAQ: http://www.comeaucomputing.com/csc/faq.html                      ]

On Wed,  8 Apr 2009 11:00:20 CST, Piotr Dobrogost
<pd@1.google.dobrogost.pl> wrote:

>I'd like to take a part in the WG21's meeting in July 2009 as an
>observer.
>Is this meeting open for public or do I have to meet any criteria?
>
>Regards
>Piotr Dobrogost

The newsgroup FAQ (see URL below) has some information about meetings.
I'll  add a few details.

The "C++ Committee" is a joint meeting of ISO SC22/WG21 and INCITS
PL22.16 (formerly J16), which have different rules about membership
and meeting attendance.

Attending as a WG21 member requires being formally accepted as a
member of a national body sending a delegation to the meeting. No
guests are allowed. The FAQ has details.

INCITS rules previously allowed non-member guests at meetings. The
rules now allow a person to attend only once as a non-member. To
attend another PL22.16 meeting, you would have to join (the FAQ has
details).

We occasionally have non-members at meetings, as PL22.16 guests. As a
courtesy, send a note to the chair saying you'd like to attend.

Some things to consider:  You need to be a member to be on the
commitee mailing lists, so as a non-member you would not be current
with discussions on the various topics to be discussed at the meeting.
This year and next year, the meetings are about dealing with comments
received on the Committee Drafts -- the first one released last
October, the second expected to be released next October. The
discussions are usually about small details, because no new features
or major changes can be introduced.

Steve Clamage
PL22.16 Chair

--
[ comp.std.c++ is moderated.  To submit articles, try just posting with ]
[ your news-reader.  If that fails, use mailto:std-c++@netlab.cs.rpi.edu]
[              --- Please see the FAQ before posting. ---               ]
[ FAQ: http://www.comeaucomputing.com/csc/faq.html                      ]

On 4/12/2009 11:54 AM, Francis Glassborow wrote:
>... In practice I think we will continue
> to welcome anyone interested enough to attend.

And that's how many or even most committee members started - by
attending a committee meeting and getting interested. C++ is essentially
an open source software project, where the work product is the standard
itself. If someone is motivated enough and knowledgeable enough to pitch
in and help, committee members will find a way to fit that person in one
way or another.

--Beman

--
[ comp.std.c++ is moderated.  To submit articles, try just posting with ]
[ your news-reader.  If that fails, use mailto:std-c++@netlab.cs.rpi.edu]
[              --- Please see the FAQ before posting. ---               ]
[ FAQ: http://www.comeaucomputing.com/csc/faq.html                      ]

Francis Glassborow wrote:
> The rules changed recently (until last year WG21 and J16 met together as
> a collocated meeting. Both ANSI (or whatever it calls itself now) and
> JTC1 changed their rules with the result that WG21 now meets as always
> but with an unlimited number of members of each national delegation
> (there used to be a limit that made it necessary to circumvent the rules
> in order for the large number of US based experts to attend.)

Interesting. Just for what little it is worth, I'm going to attempt to
unravel the various organizations involved with the process on the US side.



ISO. The leading International Standards organization. Anything in any
field
worth standardizing can result in one of ISO's International Standards,
assuming enough interest and support, although various procedures need
to be
followed.

IEC. A major international standards organization. Creates standards in
"Electrotechnology". It is the second major standards organization.

JTC1. A Joint Technical Comittee between the ISO and the IEC. Roughly
speaking, all electrotechnology International Standards go through them.
The
ISO and IEC are not directly relevant to the Committee as JTC1 is the face
of those organizations.

Subcomitee 22 (JTC1/SC22). Part of JTC1. This subcomitee is responsible for
programming languages.

Working Group 21 (JTC1/SC22/WG21). Part of SC22. This is the Working Group
that develops C++.
---
ANSI. The organization that oversees development of United States
Standards.
(Coloquially ANSI Standards.) It does not make standards itself. It is the
US representative (member body) to the ISO. (Corresponds to the ISO)

USNC. The US National Comittee of the IEC. A "fully integrated"
committee of
ANSI. It acts more like a somewhat seperate organization. (Corresponds to
the IEC).

INCITS. An independant organziation (not part of ANSI or UNSC). Serves as
ANSI's desingated Technical Advisory Group to the ISO's JTC1 Committee.
Serves as UNSC's desingated Technical Advisory Group to the IEC's JTC1
Committee. It therefore serves as the Technical Advisory Group to JTC1.
(Corresponds to JTC1).

INCITS/PL22. A technical comitee of INCITS. It serves as the TAG to
JTC1/SC22. (Corresponds to JTC1/SC22)

INCITS/PL22.16. A working group of PL22. Prior to re-organization was J16.
It serves as the TAG to JTC1/SC22/WG21.
---------

C++ Committee: Pretty much whoever is present at the meetings.
Historically,
it has consisted of the members of J16 and predicessors as well as the
delegates to WG21. My understanding is that that is still technically
accurate, as PL22.16 has no independent meetings, and thus the US
delegation
is PL22.16, rather than PL22.16's delegation. That said, the definition
that
the comittee is WG21 would be simplier, and pretty much just as correct.
----------

While the above came out surprising clear, in general the structure of the
standards world is a mess. If the complicated history of the committe were
factored in at least another 4 organizations would be included, vestages of
which are still present. The end result is that much of the work in
creating
standards is done informally, often bending the rules quite a bit. Even JTC
1 has issues following the formal rules, as seen in the many irregularities
of the darn OOXML scandal.

That's just the way the standards world tends to work.




--
[ comp.std.c++ is moderated.  To submit articles, try just posting with ]
[ your news-reader.  If that fails, use mailto:std-c++@netlab.cs.rpi.edu]
[              --- Please see the FAQ before posting. ---               ]
[ FAQ: http://www.comeaucomputing.com/csc/faq.html                      ]

Beman Dawes wrote:
>
> And that's how many or even most committee members started - by
> attending a committee meeting and getting interested. C++ is essentially
> an open source software project, where the work product is the standard
> itself. If someone is motivated enough and knowledgeable enough to pitch
> in and help, committee members will find a way to fit that person in one
> way or another.
>

Indeed. I often wish that ISO developed standards in a truely open fashion.
Some organizarions are better at that. For example, take the W3C. Quite a
bit of work goes on publiclally there. Drafts and the final standards are
freely available. A significant amount of development discussion occurs on
the public mailing lists. The working groups do have private members only
areas where some things are kept such as member contact information,
sensitive material from corporate entities that are being made available
for
use in the standardization process, etc.

I personally prefer the extreme of the IETF, where to the best of my
ability
to determine everything in the stadnards development process is open. That
is to say that there are no offical member's only areas, and virtually
everything is developed openly on public mailing lists.

Unfortunately being quite that open is allegedly impossible under ISO
rules.
(Or perhaps it is JTC1's rules, which are sometimes called ISO's rules even
when they differ from the formal rules of the ISO.)


--
[ comp.std.c++ is moderated.  To submit articles, try just posting with ]
[ your news-reader.  If that fails, use mailto:std-c++@netlab.cs.rpi.edu]
[              --- Please see the FAQ before posting. ---               ]
[ FAQ: http://www.comeaucomputing.com/csc/faq.html                      ]

Hi

I'd like to take a part in WG21 meeting in July 2009 as an observer.
Is this meeting open for public or do I have to meet any criteria?

Regards
Piotr Dobrogost

--
[ comp.std.c++ is moderated.  To submit articles, try just posting with ]
[ your news-reader.  If that fails, use mailto:std-c++@netlab.cs.rpi.edu]
[              --- Please see the FAQ before posting. ---               ]
[ FAQ: http://www.comeaucomputing.com/csc/faq.html                      ]