Standards-Related Organizations
2000-01-19
This page identifies various standards-related organizations
which may be concerned with software interface standards.
International Organizations
- International Organization for
Standardization (ISO)
- Maintains and sponsors international standards in many fields,
including computing related fields. These are now generally under
the auspices of ISO/IEC JTC1 (see below). Actually development
is done by Technical Committees.
- International
Electrotechnical Commission (IEC)
- Develops and sponsors international standards for electrotechnology,
including some related to computer hardware. These are now managed
by ISO/IEC JTC1 (see below).
- ISO/IEC Joint
Technical Committee 1 (JTC1)
- Joint ISO/IEC committee for management of information processing
standards.
- International Telecommunications
Union (ITU)
- The ITU is a treaty organization of the United
Nations. It is responsible for a large suite of telecommunications
standards (known as Recommendations). Until the ITU was reorganized
in the last few years, these standards were handled mainly by
an ITU committee known as CCITT. The V, X, and Z series are particularly
relevant to computing systems. Most of the recommendations are
low-level and hardware oriented, but some have software implications.
- North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO)
- NATO develops and endorses standards and standardization
agreements useful in the international military community.
U.S. Organizations
- American National Standards
Institute (ANSI)
- ANSI Sponsors and publishes U.S. standards and represents
the U.S. in international organizations including ISO and IEC.
Actual standards development is done by professional groups in
various industries known as Accredited Standards Committees (ASCs).
- NCITS
- The National Consortiuim for Information Technology Standards
(pronounced "insights"). Formally known by the colorful
name "X3". NCITS is a consortium of information processing
companies which exists specifically to serve as an ANSI ASC for
the information processing area. Actual development is done in
various technical committees.
- Institute
for Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE)
- The professional organization for EEs, IEEE is an ANSI ASC.
Computer-related standards are developed through the IEEE Computer
Society. Note that the IEEE is a U.S. based international organization;
however, its representation in international standards arena
is primarily through ANSI.
- IEEE Computer
Society (IEEE-CS)
- Develops computer-related standards through its Standards
Activities Board (SAB). Actual development is carried out by
Working Groups organized under a number of Standards Committees.
- Electronic Industries Association
(EIA)
- A professional organization and ANSI ASC which develops standards
for electronic hardware.
- National Institute for Standards
and Technology (NIST)
- Official U.S. Government agency for government-related standardization.
Among many standards-related activities NIST maintains Federal
Information Processing Standards (FIPS) and publishes a variety
of standards-related guides and reports.
- Defense Information Systems
Agency (DISA)
- Provides information on standards used by the U.S. Defense
Department. Includes links to specifications for the DoD Technical
Architecture Framework for Information Management (TAFIM)
and the Joint Technical
Architecture (JTA). The JTA is a comprehensive profile of
standards to be used for defense-related projects.
Other National and Supernational Organizations
- European Committee for Standardization
(CEN)
- CEN is responsible for European standardisation in all fields
except Electrotechnical (CENELEC) and Telecommunications (ETSI).
- European Computer Manufacturers
Association (ECMA)
- ECMA has generated over 200 standards. One of the most noteworthy
is PCTE (The Portable Common Tools Environment). Others address
character sets, communications, physical data representation
on magnetic media, etc.
- Standards Council of Canada
- Japan
Industrial Standards Committee (JIS)
-
Consortia
- The Open Group
- Formed in February 1996 by the joining together of X/Open
and the Open Software Foundation. TOG is a consortium which develops
standards and specifications for Open (UNIX-based) systems. Significant
products include the Distributed
Computing Environment (DCE), the Single
Unix Specification and The
Open Group Architecture Framework.
- The Object Management Group(OMG)
- A Consortium which develops and maintains specifications
for a system of common distributed objects, including the Common
Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) specification.
- The
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
- The IETF maintains Internet-related documents and standards,
including RFCs.
- The X Consortium
- Maintains standards and distributes software related to the
X-Window System.
- The Unicode Consortium
- Developers of the Unicode standard, a character set standard
designed to represent all possible global alphabets.
- The Object Database Management
Group (ODMG)
- The ODMG is a consortium of object-oriented database management
system (ODBMS) vendors and interested parties working on standards
to allow portability of customer software across ODBMS products.
A principal ODMG specification is the Object Database Standard
(ODMS).
- The TRON Association
- A consortium based in Japan, which develops and maintains
specifications related to The
TRON Project.
Back to Software Interface Standards
Page
Back to Software Portability Home Page
Back to Jim Mooney's Home Page