Conference 7.286::fddi

1182.0. "Copper FDDI Standard Update" by LEVERS::B_CRONIN () Mon Dec 13 1993 10:23

    The copper FDDI standard was "completed" at last week's FDDI standards
    meeting. "Completed" means that the FDDI committee has sent the
    document out for a vote, in the belief that the technical work is
    finished. The vote is expected to close around the end of January, in
    time for the comments to be reviewed at the February 1994 FDDI meeting. 
    
    For you standard's trivia buffs, the process now turns to conducting 
    a vote of the X3T9 membership, and resolving their comments. I expect
    that we will receive some comments that will need to be resolved, but,
    that these will be relatively minor. 
    
    Officially, the standard is not yet 'final', but from here on out its 
    usually minor tweaks to the document. The standard won't be final
    until it goes through the following steps:
    
    	- resolution of X3T9 ballot comments (as described above)
    	- 120 day public review period plus comment resolution
    	- final approval by the appropriate ANSI review committee
    
    Since you deal in the real world, and not the world of standards
    trivia, what does this mean?! It means that its safe to tell people
    that the committee has approved a document, and that we will know in
    about 2 months whether there are any major changes needed to that work. 
    It is expected that the document is sound (otherwise it would not have
    been forwarded for X3T9 ballot), but if a mistake is found it could 
    cause a further technical change. I say this to be complete, not
    because I'm trying to politely indicate that there is another shoe to
    drop. 
    
    Digital product plans for having fully compliant products will be
    finalized once the document comments are available for review. Since
    the standard isn't final its too early to call our products
    "compliant". The current products are as close to compliant as we 
    can make them at this time, and should interoperate with products 
    developed to this draft of the standard. Once again, as far as we know
    right now, we will be fully interoperable with the final version of the
    standard. 
    
    I'll write another update after the February meeting, and fill you in
    on any important comments, if there are any. If there are any specific
    questions please drop me a note and we'll try to get them answered.