L2/98-425

To: NCITS secretariat

Cc: David Thewlis

From: NCITS/L2

Date: December 9, 1998

(Revision December 16, 1998)

Subject: Approval of amendments to international standards that have been adopted as ANSI standards

In its last meeting NCITS/L2 discussed the approval of amendments to ISO/IEC 10646-1 and their adoption as ANSI standards. L2 identified the potential danger that national standards would deviate from their international parents, if amendments to the adopted standards were not adopted without delay.

ISO/IEC 10646-1 and its amendments are just examples for a large number of ANSI standards, lately adopted from international ones - the identified problem is the same for all of them.

Premise:

· The base standard ISO/IEC 10646-1 has been adopted as an ANSI standard as recommended by L2 as the US TAG to SC2.

· Amendments to ISO 10646-1 are being proposed to and accepted by SC2/WG2, also with the recommendation of L2.

· If the internationally approved amendment is not adopted as an amendment to the adopted ANSI standard, we end up with a different national and international standard. This would be an unacceptable situation.

Recommended process:

L2 finds that in the interest of consistency between international and national standard:

· amendments to international standards that have been adopted as ANSI standards must be adopted as ANSI standard amendments administratively by the responsible secretariat as quickly as possible

· if the initial international amendment had been rejected by the US TAG, the TAG will provide unsolicited information to NCITS / ANSI about the implications of the amendment. This might in extreme cases lead to the withdrawal of the ANSI standard in the US (but would still leave us with the international standard including the contentious amendment).

L2 recommends that above recommendations be accepted and the process of adoption of amendments to adopted standards be updated to reflect this policy.

Best regards

Arnold F. Winkler

(L2 chair)