Re: DoD and NIST undermining commercial CASE industry

[dog.ee.lbl.gov!overload.lbl.gov!agate!linus!linus.mitre.org!kjmiller.mitr e.org!user@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Kevin Miller)]

In article <1992Dec2.075323.3315@sei.cmu.edu>, firth@sei.cmu.edu (Robert
Firth) wrote:
> 
> In article <ByM75t.2s6@world.std.com> srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonia
n) writes:
> 
> >    A major CASE standards effort became rancorous in recent weeks as vendor
s,
> >government officials and commercial users leveled charges of favoritism and
> >commercial bias at one another.  At stake, both size said, is the long term
> >viability of the US computer aided software engineering (CASE) industry.
> 
> No, the US CASE industry is showing the same insularity and xenophobia
> that destroyed the US automobile industry.
> 
> PCTE will be the CASE standard everywhere in the world except the US,
> and none of US industry's paid lobbyists and trained seals can change
> that.  The effect of the US adopting an incompatible standard will be
> to shut US companies off from a large, fast-growing global market,
> and give them a small, slower-growing local market as their private
> oligopoly.  It will be the equivalent of a tariff wall blocking the
> import of software.
> 
> And the result will be the same as always: higher prices, lower quality,
> and the inexorable decay of another industry artificially shielded from
> competition.  If anyone in the US software industry believes that they
> can get away with thinking locally rather than globally, they are in
> the wrong business.  They should move to France and grow artichokes.

I'm not sure I agree with Mr. Firth's assertion here.  PCTE strikes me as a
standard in search of usable implementations, whereas ATIS appears to be a
standard evolving from an implementation.

If PCTE continues to lack for usable products, then the US market MIGHT
have products that can actually work togather for which the rest of the
industry would still be waiting.

I do agree that it would be better for everyone to work to the same or
compatible standards.

-----------------------------------------------------
Kevin Miller       | MITRE's lawyers can't moan,    |
MITRE Corporation  | 'Cause what's stated up there, |
Bedford, MA        | Is my opinion alone,           |
(617) 271-4520     | And not MITRE's to bear.       |
kjmiller@mitre.org |                                |
-----------------------------------------------------