>In cases where there is a genuine mistake in the standard, vendors
>don't break their systems in order to comply. They ask for a PASC
>interpretation (which will say "the standard says what it says, but
>concerns have been raised with the sponsor") so that the problem
>with the standard will be fixed in the next revision. In the meantime
>they can say the behaviour of their system is allowed because there
>is a mistake in the standard that has been officially acknowledged.
Not quite correct, Geoff. When an interpretation comes back simply as
"The standard says what the standard says" then implementations are in
required to do what the standard says in order to conform. There are
several other categories of response which state that no conformance
distinction can be made between alternative implementations based on the
given point. See http://www.pasc.org/interps/pascint-guide.html for the
straight dope on this. Note especially the section entitled "Pro-forma
responses".
This issue probably falls under category 2, the "Defect" situation, to
which the pro-forma response is:
"The standards states..., and conforming implementations
must conform to this. However, concerns have been raised
about this which are being referred to the sponsor."
The only unique aspect to interpretations with respect to the Austin
Group revision is that the scope of the revision project allow AG to
make changes to the revised document based on revisions. Anything
"referred to the sponsor" therefore comes into scope for revision. While
that's all very well and good for the future and for systems which will
claim conformance to the revised specification once it is approved, it
has absolutely no impact on systems claiming conformance to the input
documents to the AG revision.
In order to bring an item into scope for the revision via the
interpretation route, the interpretation request must be written so as
to convince the interpretations committee that the item constitutes a
defect, ambiguity, unaddressed item, conflict with standardized test
method, or conflict between two standard language bindings. If the
interpretations committee doesn't choose to forward the concern to the
sponsoring organization, then the item *does not* come into scope for
AG.
Jason Zions
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