ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 24 N 2121

Cooperative Agreement between ISO/IEC JTC 1 and the SEDRIS Organization 

Version 2
26 April 2000

1 Introduction

The purpose of this document is to establish the detailed procedures whereby ISO/IEC JTC1 and SEDRIS Organization will cooperate to continue the development of a series of ISO/IEC standards based on the work of and the SEDRIS Organization, including the SEDRIS Specifications. The general principles from which the details of this agreement are derived are: 

  1. The SEDRIS Organization produces "publicly available" industry specifications through an open, consensus based process with international participation by hundreds of individuals and organizations. 

  2. ISO/IEC JTC1 wishes to adopt suitable industry specifications as ISO and IEC standards. 

  3. Both organizations desire to harmonize their procedures. Initial technical development work is done primarily in the SEDRIS Organization with provisions for ISO/IEC participation. Once the technical work is stable and the editorial state is satisfactory-as indicated, for example, by the issuing of the work as a SEDRIS Organization Specification-final editorial and independent assessment technical work, eventually resulting in an International Standard, is done primarily in the ISO/IEC JTC1 with provisions for SEDRIS Organization participation. 

  4. Both organizations understand that both editorial and technical change may occur under the ISO/IEC process. Therefore a joint working group even at the initial stages will be considered.

  5. Both Organizations desire that SEDRIS Organization Specifications be adopted as ISO and IEC standards as quickly as is feasible and with only minimal changes based on an agreed set of criteria. 

2 Distribution of final standards

With the two exceptions noted below, all documents developed under this agreement, including the final ISO/IEC standards, will be made available through ISO/IEC sources and also through normal SEDRIS Organization sources, including the open SEDRIS Organization web and ftp sites. Recognizing that neither the ISO/IEC FDIS nor ISO/IEC IS can be publicly available, the SEDRIS Organization agrees to disseminate in the case of FDIS only the "SEDRIS Equivalent FDIS", with the SEDRIS presentation and in the case of the final IS only the "SEDRIS equivalent specification", with the SEDRIS presentation.

3 Document interchange

ISO/IEC documents developed under this agreement will be made available to the SEDRIS Organization and its community by placing copies on the SEDRIS Organization Web site. Relevant documents on the SEDRIS Organization Web site will be referenced in the ISO/IEC activity. No documents will be referenced which are not generally available. Notification of availability of new documents will be announced on an e-mail reflector limited to the appropriate ISO/IEC WG(s) and SEDRIS Organization participants only.

4 Intellectual property rights

In accordance with SEDRIS Organization procedures, the text of all working documents developed under this agreement, as well as the final ISO/IEC standards, shall remain free of intellectual property right restrictions which would limit their open distribution following normal SEDRIS Organization practices. The name of the standards (including, for the SEDRIS specification, the words "SEDRIS" and "Synthetic Environment Data Representation and Interchange Specification") shall also remain free of intellectual property right restrictions. The SEDRIS Organization certifies to ISO/IEC that, to the best of its knowledge, the initial set of base documents (SEDRIS base document set) are free of intellectual property right restrictions, and in particular, contain no material which any Organization claims is proprietary or confidential or is the subject of any patent. 

The SEDRIS Organization grants to ISO and IEC the rights to use the text of the SEDRIS document set (as well as other document sets to be identified at a later date) as the base document(s) for the development of ISO/IEC standards under this agreement. ISO and IEC agree that the resulting ISO/IEC International Standard(s) shall contain a suitable statement in the forward indicating that the standard was derived from SEDRIS Organization documents.

The name SEDRIS will be a registered trademark whose use will be authorized by the SEDRIS Organization.

5 Alignment of procedures

To allow coordinated review of all working documents developed under this agreement, appropriate portions of ISO/IEC JTC 1 and SEDRIS Organization procedures must be aligned. The various aspects of this alignment are described in the following subclauses.

5.1 Liaison

The ISO/IEC JTC 1 Class C Liaison mechanism will be used as a primary mechanism to enable cooperation. ISO/IEC JTC 1 will be asked initially to appoint the SEDRIS Organization as a Class C liaison Organization to ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 24. Class C liaison may be established between the SEDRIS Organization and other JTC 1 SCs in the future as required. This will allow SEDRIS Organization members, SEDRIS Organization technical staff and SEDRIS Organization nominated experts to attend ISO/IEC JTC 1 working meetings and to participate in the work. The SEDRIS Organization agrees to accept ISO/IEC JTC 1 SC representative(s) as a liaison to the SEDRIS Organization so that liaison in the other direction can be achieved. Each SC representative to SEDRIS shall have the following responsibilities: 

  1. at the point that the SEDRIS Organization agrees that work should be passed to his ISO/IEC JTC 1 SC for further processing, forward documents to his ISO/IEC JTC 1 SC;

  2. pass formal comments from his ISO/IEC JTC 1 SC to the SEDRIS Organization community and to any communities associated with the particular standard upon which comments have been received;

  3. report on the work of the SEDRIS Organization at each relevant subcommittee meeting;

  4. in coordination with the SEDRIS Organization, provide early notification to his ISO/IEC JTC 1 SC of SEDRIS Organization work that is likely to eventually be submitted to that SC; and

  5. coordinate his ISO/IEC JTC 1 SC participation in the SEDRIS Organization commenting and voting process that approves the SEDRIS Specifications.

5.2 Early collaboration

Both Organizations desire that any SEDRIS Organization Specifications that are input into ISO/IEC JTC 1 be as close to meeting ISO/IEC style and quality requirements as possible. To help achieve this goal, ISO/IEC JTC 1 agrees to produce a "Style Guide" based on Part 3 of the ISO/IEC Directives and on the ISO templates and provide it as an aid to the SEDRIS Organization in the original creation of their specifications. As a general rule, submitted specifications shall have reached the status of the SEDRIS Organization Specifications by the time of their submission to ISO/IEC JTC 1. 

Participation in SEDRIS Organization Working Groups is open to any SEDRIS Organization member plus SEDRIS Organization technical staff and any technical experts nominated by the Chair of the Working Group. ISO/IEC JTC 1 National Bodies are encouraged to participate in the technical work on SEDRIS Organization technologies by participating in these Working Groups. While both organizations recognize that technical change cannot be ruled out as a result of the ISO/IEC process, each desires that major technical changes not be made once work has been passed to ISO/IEC JTC 1 for finalization. Therefore, ISO/IEC JTC 1 National Bodies will encourage their technical experts to participate in SEDRIS Organization Working Groups.

5.3 Initiation of ISO/IEC work

No work on SEDRIS Organization Specifications shall start within ISO/IEC JTC 1 until the SEDRIS Organization has agreed that the work will be forwarded to ISO for processing as an ISO/IEC Standard. This requirement shall not prevent individual experts who participate in the work of ISO/IEC JTC 1 from simultaneously participating in the technical work of one or more SEDRIS Organization Working Groups. The criteria that shall be applied by the SEDRIS Organization 1 with the assistance of the ISO/IEC liaison representative in selecting specifications to forward to JTC include: 

  1. the work is of sufficient interest and importance the SEDRIS Organization to become an ISO/IEC standard; 

  2. the work is of sufficient completeness for review within ISO/IEC as measured by the style guide; 

  3. the work is technically stable. 

Initiation of work within ISO/IEC JTC 1 will follow the process defined in the ISO Directives. Such initiation can be either as an NP/WD (New Work Item Proposal/Working Draft) or as an NP/CD (New Work Item Proposal/Committee Draft) as deemed appropriate through mutual agreement of the two organizations.

5.4 Late stage technical changes

It is expected that editorial and technical changes may be made to the document as it is processed to become an ISO/IEC standard.

Technical changes to a specification once ISO/IEC processing has been initiated at the Committee Draft stage shall be allowed only in accordance with the following criteria: 

  1. a) clarification is necessary for the sake of completeness or consistency; 

  2. b) a serious technical flaw is found that would render the specification unusable.

When making such changes, issues of backwards compatibility with the associated installed base of software should be considered.

5.5 Finalization of ISO/IEC work

ISO/IEC JTC1 and the SEDRIS Organization agree to the following procedures for the processing work once it has entered ISO/IEC JTC1: 

  1. From the time of initiation of processing through to the publication of the IS text, ISO/IEC JTC 1 procedures shall be followed. 

  2. The SEDRIS Organization can participate in this stage of the work through the Category C liaison mechanism. 

  3. The ISO/IEC FCD text shall be published by the SEDRIS Organization for review within the Organization according to Organization practices simultaneously with the DIS ballot within ISO/IEC. This review will involve a full ballot, similar to that involved in moving from the SEDRIS Organization Proposed Specification to the SEDRIS Organization Specification. Every effort shall be made to resolve negative votes to the satisfaction of both parties prior to further processing of the text. In case of different results in the SEDRIS Organization and ISO/IEC JTC1, decisions on further processing will be taken by mutual agreement.

6 Joint meetings

All formal work under this agreement will take place at appropriately scheduled meetings of ISO/IEC JTC 1, its subcommittees and working groups. The SEDRIS Organization can participate in formal ISO meetings through the Class C liaison mechanism.

7 Publication rights

Both the SEDRIS Organization and ISO/IEC retain the rights to publish their own versions of all documents developed under this agreement according to their practices. In the event of successful balloting, a corresponding version of the resulting International Standard will be published as a SEDRIS Organization Specification on the SEDRIS Organization Web site.

8 Base document

At the time that a SEDRIS Organization Specification is submitted to ISO/IEC JTC 1 for processing as an ISO/IEC standard (either as an initial draft or as a Committee Draft), the SEDRIS Organization shall identify the base document(s) for the work. 

To insure that users of both the SEDRIS Organization Specifications and ISO/IEC International Standards can readily ascertain changes introduced during ISO/IEC JTC1 processing, any standards developed under this agreement shall contain: 

  1. a link back to the original SEDRIS Organization Specification(s) from which it was derived; and 

  2. a complete list of technical changes from the SEDRIS Organization base document.

9 Availability of drafts and other working documents 

All drafts and working documents will be freely available to participants according to each party's normal practices. 

10 Maintenance of standards

Both Organizations agree to coordinate matters of interpretation and defect correction in any ISO/IEC standards that result from this agreement. When requests for interpretation or reports of defects are submitted to ISO/IEC JTC 1, they shall be forwarded to the SEDRIS Organization to provide solutions which shall then be processed through normal ISO/IEC JTC 1 processes for defect resolution and interpretation. 

ISO/IEC JTC 1 agrees to establish Defects Editing Committees as needed to work with the SEDRIS Organization.

Both Organizations acknowledge that a registration authority will be required for items in the expected ISO/IEC standard(s). The existing Registration Authority for Graphical Items shall be used for these new registered items.