[Cobolforgcc-devel] IMPORTANT NEWS - '85 *ANSI* Standard soon to be WITHDRAWN !!!

[William M. K. <wm...@ix...>]

FYI - this is *not* official yet - but I thought that I would send this out
to various vendors and other "interested" COBOL watchers - sooner rather
than later.

It appears as if the ANSI COBOL standards
 - X3.23-1985  ("The '85 Standard)
   and
 - X3.23a-1989 ("The Intrinsic Function Amendment")

will PROBABLY be withdrawn as ANSI Standards as of June 24, 2001. (With
little expectation that they will ever be "re-instated" - although that is a
theoretical possibility.)

NOTE WELL:
  This does *not* impact the status of the FIPS COBOL Standard (if any), ISO
COBOL Standards (although I don't personally understand what an endorsement
of a non-existent ANSI Standard means), X/Open CAE (if still considered
relevant), and it is even less clear what this means for X3.23b-1993 ("The
Correction Amendment")

Possibly MORE IMPORTANT - this "withdrawal" has no currently identified
impact on the ongoing work on a "full revision".  I have asked some
questions about what happens when you try to "revise" a "not current" ANSI
Standard, but I do not think that this has any "known" impact (on schedule
or required text).  I may hear differently on this at some time in the
future. It is even possible (although I question how likely it is) that J4
will actually be able to spend more time, sooner, on the revision - once
their current responsibilities for maintaining X3.23-1985 are "officially"
removed.

I must say here, that if I (personally) had kept "my mouth shut" and if the
current ANSI "bureaucracy" had gone along "silently and without comment" -
this might not have even been an issue.  Therefore, if you are particularly
unhappy about this - please feel free to send me any "hate" mail that you
think appropriate. Do not blame others (J4, NCITS, ANSI, etc) as all they
did was "ignore" (my wording - not theirs) maintenance of the current
Standard for five (or more) years.

The bottom-line is that ANSI Standards are supposed to be revised or AT
LEAST reaffirmed every five years.  There are rules that let the "five year"
reaffirmation "slip" - but there is another rule that says that "under NO
circumstances" may this slip more than 10 years.  By the end of June 2001,
the '85 Standard and the Intrinsic Function Amendment will have gone 10
years without a reaffirmation.

Given the same "bureaucracy" that has allowed "maintenance" of the current
Standard to be ignored (or at least prioritized so low that no work was ever
done on it), it was missed (until too late) that this 10 year date was
coming up.

I expect to see an official announcement of a Public Review period about
reaffirmation soon (probably the next few days) and will be happy to pass
this along when I see it.  I have already submitted my initial comments on
this reaffirmation - and will be happy to send a copy of this to any
individuals who are interested. (Please send me private email if you would
like a copy - before it is posted on the J4 web-site.)

BOTTOM-LINE:
  Will the world change on June 24, 2001?
   Will COBOL programmers notice any difference?
    Will COBOL vendors notice any difference?
     Will those "outside" of COBOL have any better or worse opinion of
COBOL?

I think the answer to all of these questions is NO!
  But if you disagree, please feel free to contact your "vendor of choice",
standards representative, or other "responsible" party to determine what
they have been doing for the past 5 years to maintain the '85 Standard - and
what they would be willing to do in the next few years (the time before they
produce a  200x conforming compiler - if that ever occurs) to actually
SUPPORT (not just give "lip service to") the current ANSI COBOL Standard(s).

NOTE WELL:
  This note is being sent well before June 23, 2001.  ANYTHING could happen
between now and then - so I don't "guarantee" there will be no "active"
COBOL Standard on June 24th - I just "extrapolate" this from the information
available to me at this time.