ANSI Smalltalk Standard Group ANNOUNCEMENT
Written by Bruce Badger in a posting on compl.lang.smalltalk

Fellow Smalltalkers,

I have had a conference call with representatives of INCITS and it seems that getting the process restarted to revise the ANSI standard for Smalltalk is very doable.

The first step is to submit a proposal for the project of working on the Smalltalk standard. If the proposal is successful the outcome will be some form of committee which we must then populate and put to work.

I think the people on the committee will have quite a bit to learn, but the up side is that the process for developing ANSI standards through INCITS is well defined.

What to do now?

Well, if you want to be on the committee then speak up. It will be helpful to get an indication of the level of interest as soon as we can.

If you want to get involved by joining the INCITS group responsible for the development of the standard, so you may as well announce it on cls [comp.lang.smalltalk]. If you want to vote (or even if you don't) there is a simple membership process to go though and there is a membership fee too. Details of joining and what it will cost will be announced once the committee is closer to being set up.

The first bit of actual work is getting the project proposal together. More news on that soon.

Exciting, eh?

I have had a number of questions about the cost of getting involved with the ANSI Smalltalk committee.

You can get involved for no cost at all. You can participate in the committee without joining INCITS, but you can not vote on things unless you have joined.

The membership fee for joining INCITS is currently of the order of $800 USD, but that is about to change. I understand that the fee has not changed for many years so there could be a significant increase, but a doubling or anything close to that ... as far as I know :-) I also understand that the joining process is closed at the moment which the changes are worked out, so I don't think we can jump in before the increase.

So, you can volunteer to be involved for free. If you decide you want to vote, you can join INCITS.

All the best,

Bruce

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Related References:

• Discussion list for the ANSI Smalltalk project
• comp.lang.smalltalk ANSI
• INCITS.org (InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards)

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