From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.5-pre1 (2020-06-20) on ip-172-31-74-118.ec2.internal X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.0 required=3.0 tests=BAYES_20,LOTS_OF_MONEY autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.5-pre1 Date: 3 Dec 92 17:59:06 GMT From: walter!geoff@uunet.uu.net (Geoffrey Clemm) Subject: Re: DoD and NIST undermining commercial CASE industry Message-ID: List-Id: I think Scott McGregor summed up the situation rather well, but I'll add some comments by Herm Fischer (with his permission). Herm participates in most of the standardization efforts in this area (at least, he's been at every one I've ever been to, and seems to know about all the rest :-). Cheers, Geoff [GMC: First a copy of a letter to Gene Forte] From: Herm Fischer Subject: NAPI, PCTE vs (?) Atherton Gene, You are quoted (I hope out of context and incorrectly) in an article which appears to be a Computerworld piece called "Vendors, Users, Officials Wrangle over CASE Standards Dispute Escalates", which has been circulating electronically. The quote which I hope is out of context and wrong implies that: (a) Atherton vs PCTE is Americans vs Europeans (it's almost the converse, Atherton is now controlled by Thomson, a European company, and PCTE is largely exploited by the American-owned Platform Vendors, such as IBM, Digital, and American-owned CASE companies through their involvement in PCTE-based trade associations such as the PCTE Interface Management Board (PIMB) Association and the North American PCTE Users Group (NAPUG)). In fact the ONLY User's Group for PCTE is in North America, the Europeans haven't even started one yet! (b) Atherton and PCTE are opposites. Nonsense. Atherton is more object oriented, and PCTE is less, and many are working on resolving that. Most of all, Digital and other people IN THE USA are implementing PCTE together with non-Atherton ATISes on common environments! I took copious notes during the NAPI meeting, and these may help clarify things, and am forwarding as a separate message the NAPI meeting notes. Please help separate the politics of Atherton, and the politics of NIST, from the technological issues which are most important. I don't want to see the important technology issues (such as OO features from ATIS, environments built on PCTE and ATIS) embroiled in political quagmires, company-level alligators, or anything which detracts those of us trying to advance this technology. Herm Fischer [GMC: and now a letter about the Computerworld article] From: Herm Fischer Subject: PCTE Political Alligators I am really upset at the following Computerworld article which has been circulating on the email circuits because it has a number of inaccuracies which disparage a great deal of ongoing excellent technical work with the politics of Atherton and NIST. My comments are intersperced into the article. -- Herm Fischer Compterworld-authored article: > SUBJECT: VENDORS, USERS, OFFICIALS WRANGLE AS CASE STANDARDS DISPUTE > ESCALATES > AUTHOR: Garry N. Ray, Computerworld > SOURCE: International Data Group via First! by INDIVIDUAL, Inc. > DATE: November 24, 1992 > > FRAMINGHAM, Mass. - Computerworld via First! : A major CASE standards > effort became rancorous in recent weeks as vendors, government officials and > commercial users leveled charges of favoritism and commercial bias at one > another. At stake, according to both sides, is the long-term viability of > the American computer-aided software engineering (CASE) industry. This is hogwash. The American CASE industry has been highly supportive of several standards, including PCTE, CASE-Communique, X3H6, and CDIF. It has not taken sides with or against the Atherton corporation, as implied below. Atherton is just a single company. These other efforts are multi- company standards efforts. NIST has only begun to feel out its directions and political influences in this area, and is not an antagonist. It is only trying to get started, and by immediately involving all parties, politicians, technologists, and vendors, has been the first to stir the pot. > More than a technical dispute, it involves ``proposals to put substantial > amounts of money'' into software standards, said Gene Forte, executive > editor of ``CASE Outlook,'' a Seattle-based CASE newsletter. ``It's about > the competitive advantage of American software companies vs. Europeans,'' he > added. I know Gene Forte, and I hope he didn't really mean this. I wrote him an email asking if this is an out of context misquote. I noted to Gene that I hope he didn't mean to imply that: >> >> (a) Atherton vs PCTE is Americans vs Europeans (it's almost the >> converse, Atherton is now controlled by Thomson, a European company, >> and PCTE is largely exploited by the American-owned Platform Vendors, >> such as IBM, Digital, and American-owned CASE companies through their >> involvement in PCTE-based trade associations such as the PCTE >> Interface Management Board (PIMB) Association and the North American >> PCTE Users Group (NAPUG)). In fact the ONLY User's Group for PCTE is >> in North America, the Europeans haven't even started one yet! >> >> (b) Atherton and PCTE are opposites. Nonsense. Atherton is more >> object oriented, and PCTE is less, and many are working on resolving >> that. Most of all, Digital and other people IN THE USA are implementing >> PCTE together with non-Atherton ATISes on common environments! The Computerworld article continues... > The dispute came to public notice with a widely distributed letter sent on > Nov. 18 by Edward White, a vice president at Atherton Technology in > Sunnyvale, Calif. In the letter, addressed to a senior official at the > National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and sent by White to > members of the press, White charged that NIST and the U.S. Department of > Defense are supporting a CASE standard that will ``undermine American > National Standards Institute efforts to establish a standard which will > better serve the interests of the U.S.'' NIST has done the U.S. a very great service by starting with a reference model and catalyzing the U.S. CASE industry to support evolution of the reference model. The reference model came from the UK, but from an American company in the UK. The reference model is a valuable contribution, and NIST should be recognized for it in the article. NIST's ventures into the PCTE initiative are their attempt to go one step further, and whether one agrees or disagrees with all of what they propose, politically or technically, they have done a valuable great job (so far) and have publicly come to the industry with their proposal for the next step. They are not anti-american communist bed-wetting perverts, but instead willing to risk political alligators as they discover what industry does and doesn't want. However, Garry Ray implies that PCTE is a CASE standard which is anti- American. As I note above, PCTE is much more American than Atherton, but this is McCarthyism to invoke. American CASE and Platform vendors have been backing PCTE and OO enhancements to PCTE because that is a vendor-neutral standard. It is the ONLY accredited standard in this area (even if accreditation is currently only European). Atherton's standard is ONLY backed by Atherton, though Digital implements its variant of Atherton's interface side-by-side with PCTE. The other platform vendors so far have only supported PCTE. Why wave the flag incorrectly? > Atherton is the developer of the CASE A Tool Integration Standard (ATIS), > which has been implemented by The Boeing Co., GTE Government Systems, Verdix > Corp. and other companies in a number of government contracts. ATIS competes > in the CASE standards arena with the Portable Common Tools Environment > (PCTE), a 10-year effort headed by the European Computer Manufacturers > Association at a purported cost of more than $400 million, according to a > senior Boeing official. In addition, PCTE is currently the foundation for a > proposal under review by the International Standards Organization (ISO). Why not tell us the purported cost of Atherton investments too? I really don't care. What I do know is that IBM, Digital, HP, and many other AMERICAN companies made major parts of the $400 million cited above. > Because of its support in Europe and within ISO, ``we want to use PCTE as > baseline'' for a U.S. CASE standard, said NIST senior computer scientist > William Wong, the recipient of White's letter. Wong has been overseeing a > long-term evaluation of CASE integration frameworks for use in government > software projects. > > But politics are also playing a part in the decision. Although he > acknowledged that ``PCTE is not quite strong enough now,'' Wong said that by > working on that standard, ``we have the opportunity to influence'' the ISO. > ``We're just one nation in a group of nations,'' he added. > No matter. The DOD ``is pulling the trigger too fast'' by supporting PCTE, > White later explained. Because it supports dated technology, ``PCTE is > another AD/Cycle, another attempt to boil the ocean,'' he said. AD/Cycle is implied to be a dated technology, which may be true. What IS true is that AD/Cycle is a SINGLE-VENDOR standard, as is Atherton's proposal. PCTE is a vendor-independent standard. Given that it continues the current course of being updated with OO and other modern features (indeed, benefiting from the OO technology lessons of Atherton), it will be an up to date vendor-independent standard. And why does it have to be PCTE VERSUS Atherton; Digital has shown in prototypes and now a production product under way that the two technologies (PCTE and Digital's interpretation of Atherton's proposal) can co-habitate the same environment! > A Boeing spokesman agreed: ``We support the direction and thrust of > Atherton and are strongly committed to ATIS and the functionality underneath > it.'' > > However, beneath the immediate technical concerns is one point on which > all parties seem to concur. According to Forte, ``If you let Europe define > what the [CASE] standard is, then they will have a competitive advantage'' > in CASE and commercial software over the long term. This is the statement which I most am upset about. It's even less than bull-excrement. PCTE was defined hand-in-hand with the DoD's Common Ada Support Environment Interface Set (CAIS-A), and CAIS-A and PCTE designers sat together on the same committees during the 1980s. I know because I chaired the U.S. industry designer group (KITIA) for five years. The only advantage the Europeans had during the 1980s designing years is much clearer funding requirement to commercialize their product than the Americans had. Their labors begat the initial PCTE implementations, which begat the current American-owned platform vendor as well as European platform vendor PCTE involvements. > Garry N. Ray, Computerworld -- geoff@bellcore.com