X3J11 response to comments (was: Block Closure)

[Barry Margolin]

In article <5309 at megaron.arizona.edu> mike at arizona.edu (Mike Coffin) writes:
>It seems to me that a poll tax ensures that
>most of the responses will come from people who are paid by their
>employers to write a response.  Is this a good criterion?

Like it or not, the ANSI standardization process assumes that the
participants are mostly corporations.  Standardization is a process by
which the members of an industry work together to improve
interoperability.

True, this means that many people who are affected by standards are
not part of the development process.  Personally, I think that
automobile standards probably affect most of us more than computer
language standards (how many people have died because K&R C didn't
have "volatile"?), yet I don't see many of you complaining because you
weren't given the opportunity to discuss how bright the third brake
light must be.

Remember, the standards committee must write an individual response to
each response letter, and this response must address every point
raised.  It is difficult enough to do this with the normal number of
responses.  It would probably be a full time job if everyone could get
a copy for free and send in comments.  Relating this to your poll tax
analogy, if a politician had to personally tell each voter why he
should be elected, the campaign would take many years.

Barry Margolin
Thinking Machines Corp.

barmar at think.com
uunet!think!barmar