Draft ISO-IEC 19770-2 Standard

Member/Res. Ctr. Login:


Forgotten Password Help
Search:

Site Map

Draft Standard ISO-IEC 19770-2

Here at IAITAM, we have always presented a best practice view of software standards to our members as demonstrated with the release of the IAITAM Best Practice Library (“IBPL”) at the 2007 Conference and hope to assist the global standards organization in its quest to develop standards that meet real market needs. In keeping with this frame of mind, IAITAM is joining the ISO/IEC Working Group as a Category C Liaison. To assist in the efforts of the Working Group, the standard is available for download until September 19, 2008.

Register for your free copy at the bottom of this page.

Here is a quick update on what's happening with the draft standard ISO/IEC 19770-2. Please have a look at the questions and answers below for information that may be relevant to your organization.The following is being provided by IAITAM to members and customers; it is not an official statement from ISO, OWG or WG 21; and is being provided for informational purposes only.

What's happening with the 19770-2 Standard?

The draft standard ISO/IEC 19770-2, " Information technology – Software asset management – Part 2: Software Tag" has been approved to be submitted as a final committee draft and has gone through one last review process to ensure consistent and accurate references as well as to validate the XSD structure. During this editing process some modifications have been made to the schema as well as to conformance sections and examples. For additional details of what changed in the standard, see the last questions in this Q&A document. There are no outstanding review comments for this standard.

What is the purpose of distributing the updated draft?

We seek primarily to inform, and secondarily to ensure that there are no significant issues which have somehow been missed to-date, or which have been introduced by the latest final revisions. We are not asking for another full public review, but rather giving a last chance for objections from the public. What happens next is that the document goes under ISO/IEC copyright lockdown, and you will not be able to obtain a copy unless you are formally involved in the standards-making process. The next formal stage is for the final working draft to be circulated as a Final Committee Draft to the National Bodies which are part of ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1 (JTC1) for their review and vote.

In short, there is a final chance for any members of the IT industry – including those not involved in the formal standards-making processes - to raise concerns with the final editing that was done to the document.

How long is the period for raising final comments?

The draft is available for comment until September 19, 2008. This review period is intended to allow all companies that may have an interest in creating or using software tags, the ability to re-validate the schema and ensure it will work in their environment. Please download a copy as soon as possible and inform your peers, partners and associates of the standards availability. The Other Working Group (OWG) developing this standard already has approval to submit our final working draft as a final committee draft (FCD) and once it is submitted, distribution of any other copies will no longer be allowed. If significant issues are discovered during this short review period, please notify comments@agnitioadvisors.com immediately.

How will the right people hear about the review?

There are a number of people who should hear about the final review period and you can help with that! Please forward this notice to any SAM eco-system member you believe may be interested in software identification tags. If you work for or with software publishers, please forward this information to the product management or licensing team. If you work for an end-user organization, please forward this information to your desktop and SAM management team. The more people who are familiar with this standard, the sooner software will become easier to manage from almost all perspectives!

Can I help promote the standard?

If you or your company would like to promote this standard, prior to it becoming an FCD, it is available for distribution by anyone without charge. Once the standard becomes a final committee draft, it is no longer available for general distribution.

What's the on-going schedule for the development of ISO/IEC 19770-2?

Here is a summary of the steps needed to move this standard from its current working draft status to International Standard ('IS') status:

Working Draft is submitted for fast tracking as the Final Committee Draft (FCD) – this step has already been approved during the ISO Plenary in Berlin in May, and will be actioned by the Convener of WG21 at the end of this final validation process.
Each country which is a member of ISO (technically, which is a permanent member of ISO/IEC JTC1 SC7) can vote for or against the draft and provide comments. The voting period for an FCD is four months
The draft is updated as required based on any comments received.
The updated draft must be approved by the ISO/IEC JTC1 SC7 plenary meeting in May 2009 to be put to a vote as a Final Draft International Standard (FDIS). This will depend on whether the countries consider that their comments have been satisfactorily addressed.
Each country involved can again vote for or against the draft, but comments are no longer accepted. The voting period for an FDIS is two months.
Assuming the votes are positive, ISO then does a final edit of the draft for purely technical issues, and publishes the standard. This process typically takes several months.

Though the process can take a significant amount of time, we do not expect the technical content of the standard to change significantly as the draft moves toward becoming an official ISO standard. We expect that a number of companies will start working with the final schema defined in this draft of the standard as the defacto standard. A number of software publishers have already seen the value that the tagging standard provides to both them and their customers and are currently in the process of providing software tags for their products.

What changed in the draft during the last edits?

The working draft from the April of 2008 public review addressed all outstanding comments the OWG received. The working draft had one last editorial review completed to minimize the likelihood of minor terminology issues becoming show-stoppers. During this review, we identified a number of cases of inconsistency in the use of terminology. Additionally, the XSD was reviewed to ensure all elements were defined consistently.

The following is a list of principle changes to the earlier draft:

More explanatory information:
- A revised introduction
- An additional Annex to give a conceptual overview, to facilitate understanding
More consistency and completeness in conformance language:
- “Should” and “shall” instead of “may” and “must”, for example.
- Addition of conformance language for 3^rd party tag creators.
More consistency and more explicit definition of the different tag roles:
- Addition of three identifier elements – software_creator, software_licensor, tag_creator.
- Additional elements to specify which entity owns which tag elements.
- Additional copyright details element.
More extensive explanation of requirements for tag filenames:
- Additional details on filenames of software tags during distribution or after installation of software.
- Clarification of alternatives for installed tag filenames.
Updated XSD specification and examples to match other changes.

There has been no change in scope during this editing process.

A confirmation email with download instructions will be sent when registration is complete.

Sorry, online enrollment for this item is not currently available.