[Ccsds-omg-liaison] RE: Evolution of XTCE

[Adrian J. Hooke]

>From: "Kevin Rice" <kevin.rice at gst.com>
>To: <Mario.Merri at esa.int>, "'Kizzort, Brad'" <bkizzort at harris.com>
>Cc: <space at omg.org>, "'Jonathan Gal-Edd'" <jgal-edd at hst.nasa.gov>,
>         "'Jane K. Marquart'" <Jane.K.Marquart at nasa.gov>,
>         "'curtis Fatig'" <cfatig at hst.nasa.gov>, <Nestor.Peccia at esa.int>
>Subject: RE: Updated agenda for Space DTF at Anaheim
>Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2006 11:49:58 -0400
>
>I think we need qualify the issue of "change" to XTCE.  If anything at this
>point, folks are likely to ask for ADDITIONS to the spec, not wholesale
>changes in element or sub-elements.
>
>I think this is likely to be a natural outcome of folks using XTCE due to
>the nature of the varied formats that are out there now in common use and
>the sort of "organic nature" of their creation.  My take is that many of
>these other formats have simply evolved over time to meet changing mission
>needs, and in some cases contain lots of "special cases". As is typical
>human nature, a user's missing special case will be dearly missed and hence
>show up as a desire in XTCE.  And it may turn out that there's commonality
>in some of those instances between disparate organizations, and as such, an
>opportunity to standardize.
>
>I think based on that just having the RTF is probably ok, no one is
>proposing anything yet by any stretch and the RTF always has the option of
>simply rejection any suggestions it doesn't like. More importantly though,
>the RTF can honestly review needs by the industry users, and provide an
>outlet for dealing with them, hopefully keeping the spec more common in that
>way.  (in other words trying to minimize too many custom extensions by
>providing a mechanism for dealing with suggested changes)
>
>Thinking beyond that to the BOF, the folks that have used XTCE may have some
>things to share with each other, and I would envision the BOF as not being
>necessarily about anything specific -- I thought it was just to be an open
>forum for folks interested in XTCE.
>
>I am personally interested in what other IMPLEMENTORS have been doing
>compared to what I have been doing, so my interest is more from a learning
>standpoint than coming up with new standards areas.
>
>And once again, I will just state my own personal reluctance to move into
>standards areas that don't already have at least one good implementation
>already in use that folks agree is a "good idea."  (and I might add the
>clear support to move from RFP to spec from proposers)
>
>Anyway, that's my take...