Volume 6, Number 3, Pages 42-43

Interesting Times by Art Smith

Well, as seems all too often the case, I'm writing this sitting on an airplane. This time I'm flying home from Boston after the MTA Annual Conference and the MUMPS Development Committee meeting that followed it. Two days before I took off for these meetings, I heard the news that InterSystems had purchased Micronetics. Like most everyone at both meetings, it caught me by surprise and left me a bit disoriented. More than a few people recounted the ancient Chinese curse: "May you live through interesting times."

There was a lot of speculation about what this will mean to the M community and how it will affect all of us who work there. Unfortunately, it was all just that -- speculation. Nobody, not even InterSystems, can tell at this early point what the effect will be. For certain individuals, the effect will be profound, and, too often, sad. For others it may be an unexpected blessing. For some, it may even be both in the months to come. At this point, it is too early to tell, and I suspect we will still have a lot to learn even as you read this in a month or two.

So, how will these interesting times affect the MDC? That remains to be seen. It was probably fortunate that the meeting immediately following the MTA was a "called" meeting. Such meetings have fixed agendas that cannot be changed during the meeting. This prevented the MDC from taking any action other than working on existing standards proposals. We could, and did, discuss the purchase, both in full session and in small informal groups, but that was the extent of what we could do. This prevented the MDC from making any "knee-jerk" reactions to the news and allowed us to approach the problem deliberately -- and deliberation is what the MDC does best (too well, according to some!).

At the "meeting of the whole" to discuss this issue, the committee came up with several action items that will be addressed in the next few weeks. Most of these are aimed at gathering more information so that we can try to make an informed decision at the September meeting in Seattle. One of these action items involves all of you, the members of the M community. We want to know what you think we should do. We have several choices available to us. I'll outline the ones we know about below, and doubtless some of you will think of others we have forgotten.

1. We can simply dissolve right away. This was the immediate response for some people. If there is only one vendor (which I'm sure the employees of Greystone, PFCS and Extensao would dispute), why even continue with the nearly-completed standards effort we have now? I can tell you that, after some consideration, few if any of the MDC members support this option. We're too close to having the next standard ready.
2. We can complete the present "Millennium" standard and then dissolve. This actually has three sub-choices.
1. We can stop after developing an MDC standard. We expect to roll this standard in September. At least one more meeting would be required to approve the final form of the standard, which must be compiled from the 80 or more proposals approved by the MDC since the 1995 standard was rolled.
2. We can canvass the MDC standard in accordance with ANSI procedures and seek to obtain National Standard status as has been done in the past. This will require a minimum of a year and possibly as many as three years of intermittent effort.
3. We can, if invited, submit the National Standard to the International Standards Organization for acceptance as an International Standard. This, too, has been done in the past, and requires additional time and effort.
3. We can continue on as we have in the past, producing new standards at approximately five year intervals, based on enhancement requests received from MDC members, M vendors and individuals and corporations throughout the M community.
4. We can change the nature of the MDC. This can be done with or without completing the work of the Millennium standard in any of the three incarnations outlined in number 2, above. What would this new group become? There has been a lot of discussion about this, and the two most popular options are listed below:
1. We could become a sort of technical advisory group for InterSystems and the other M vendors. One proposed form would be to have one or more vendors present this group with a strategic long-term development goal at each meeting (or perhaps a few such goals), and allow the group to hash out what they see as an optimal solution. The vendors would then be free to use this solution, or not, as they saw fit. Obviously, this would need to be cost effective for all the participants (vendors and committee members alike) to work.
2. We could become a source of general software tools that member institutions could freely use, much as DECUS was for Digital Equipment Corporation in the 1970s. One of the selling points of M has long been the public domain add-ons developed by the Department of Veterans Affairs among others. As the VA pursues its stated goal of "getting out of the software development business," this group could, conceivably, pick up where they left off, and add additional tools that the community would find useful. Whether this group would actually produce the software, or simply orchestrate production and delivery would need to be determined. With this option, also, there are financial and practical concerns that would need to be evaluated.

So what do you think we should do? The MDC exists to serve the M community. If we don't provide a service to you, we are doing the wrong thing. Please tell us which of the above options you would prefer, or suggest an alternate plan. Feel free to provide as many details as you can think of. Let us know if you or your institution would be willing to participate in these activities, either financially or as members. Send your responses to me by e-mail at Emergent@sockets.net, or by regular post care of the MTA office at 1738 Elton Rd, Suite 205, Silver Spring, MD 20903. Help us find our way, so that we can help you do the same. If we work together, we can prove that interesting times may sometimes be a blessing.

Art Smith chairs the MDC and is in charge of computer systems at the University of Missouri's Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital. Email: Emergent@sockets.net.