Proposed response to Fateman

["Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>]

I suggest the following message, to be sent from me to Fateman
personally.  It would not go out to the whole list, though we can't
ignore the possibility the he would forward excerpts from it if he wants
to challenge the committee composition.  I'm hoping and guessing that he
will grumble a bit and then let it drop.

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Richard,

We did not ask for volunteers or nominations because we thought that
this would lead to a lot of political maneuvering: every company would
have felt compelled to put forward a candidate, and then most would have
been unhappy when we could pick only a few new members.  We picked the
technical and steering committees ourselves, as we were charged to do at
the Boston meeting.

On the "fame" issue, I think that the length of one's publication list
is not the right criterion.  The group that needs to accept the
committee and its work is the community of Common Lisp implementors,
tool-builders, and users, both current and potential.  Within that
group, reputation comes from association with the development of
well-known, widely-used Lisp systems or facilities and visible activity
on behalf of Lisp propagation and standardization.  I will admit that in
one or two cases we relaxed the fame requirement a bit in order to take
someone whose technical judgement and perspective we thought would be
important to the committee's work.  However, I think that we have a
committee whose collective reputation will carry considerable weight in
international circles.

Let me empahsize that there are very many people who meet the criteria
we set, and that we could only pick a few of them.  We felt that we
needed a small committee that could work effectively together to get the
job done, and that we needed a certain mix of talents and viewpoints.  I
don't think that it would be a good idea to discuss exactly why we
selected or didn't select specific individuals.

Once again, the technical discussions will be open to anyone who cares
to participate, and will operate by consensus werever possible.  Also,
membership in the X3J13 committee is open to anyone who chooses to
participate, and in the end they have the final control over what gets
proposed to ANSI and then to ISO.  The technical and steering committees
will operate under X3J13, once it is funcitoning.

-- Scott