The convenor thanks those NBs who have informally indicated to him their highest-priority comments and responses.
It would be better if such information was provided openly. Now the convenor openly admits that he knows more than the participants of the BRM.
Taking the variety of these into account, and the partial nature of the response, the convenor has decided it would be counter-productive to prescribe an order of discussion in the agenda.
Instead NBs will be invited to speak by the convenor in the meeting sessions, and the convenor will thus ensure NBs can enjoy fair representation over the course of the meeting by granting them mission to speak in alphabetical order, making as many passes over the delegations as time allows.
In session, Heads of Delegation shall otherwise indicate a wish to speak by raising their printed country sign. The convenor shall only recognise Heads of Delegation who may, if invited to speak, subsequently cede the floor to a member of their delegation.
NBs are requested to have as the topic of each meeting contribution only a single comment (or response).
Which means that it is technically impossible to agree on change packages (with the ECMA dispositions as the most prominent one) as a whole.
NBs are reminded that the purpose of the Ballot Resolution Meeting is to agree a text. Contributions that are not in accord with this objective shall be ruled out of order.
The only comments on DIS 29500 that shall be discussed are those which were properly submitted to ITTF in the 2 September 2007 DIS ballot; the only responses that shall be discussed are those of the document ISO/IEC JTC 1 SC 34 N 980, or those subsequently raised in the meeting.
Does it mean that the convenor limits the possible responses and changes the BRM may apply to the text? ISO/IEC JTC 1 SC 34 N 980 are the Project Editor's Proposed Dispostion of Comments. I am not sure the national committees will be happy with that competence castration of the BRM by its convenor. For instance some delegations circulated substantial contributions for the date problem that is not sufficiently addressed by the project editor and prepared proposals for their national comments. It is difficult to understand why Alex Brown bases the BRM work on the ECMA proposed dispositions rather than the national comments. Thus the BRM is hijacked by a private party, ECMA, that itself submitted the immature specification to fast-track and employed at least a member of the Australian delegation to work on the dispositions of comments.