Scheme R7RS Status update: WG2 chairship consultation

[Daphne Preston-Kendal]

Dear Schemers,

A few notes; probably a bit scrappy, sorry, it’s been a long busy weekend.

First, to the steering committee election. Our independent overseer has not been reachable recently, but the election was uncontested – 3 candidates for 3 seats – and so I can unofficially call Arthur Gleckler, Shiro Kawai, and Marc Feeley the members-elect of the new steering committee. An official announcement will follow once I can finally get hold of Daniel to confirm it.

Second, to the future of WG2 and my chairship of it. I have taken a break from chairing WG2 since the beginning of the year, and several members of WG2 have stepped in as acting chair and acting editors to fill my role in the meanwhile. I am very grateful to them; I think being without me for a while has actually enabled the WG to grow in its independence from the chair in a positive way.

However, it is clear that the situation of the permanent chair being only available part time is not sustainable as the WG is picking up speed.

Therefore the question is: what is the future of my role as chair?

Does the WG want me to return to active duty as permanent chair?
Does the WG want me to help onboard someone else into the role of permanent chair? There are certainly people in WG2 who have shown that they are capable of taking this on.

For information about my personal context:

From next month (June) I will probably be unemployed again. I am considering *many* options for my future.

For one, I am open to returning as active chair. There is an opportunity which would be great for me if I were to do this: Germany’s Sovereign Tech Agency announced a grant for people working on specifications this week.
<https://www.sovereign.tech/programs/standards>
Officially, only W3C, ISO, and IETF standards are eligible. I have taken advice from someone in the know and they think that an IEEE standard would probably also be okay. So if we were open to reviving the idea of Scheme as an IEEE standard, I could take on the role of chair and editor and be paid sufficiently that I could consider Scheme my primary job.
Questions:
• Whether we could re-activate the IEEE process fast enough, or at least have a credible guarantee of being able to do so (deadline is 19 May)
• Whether we could convince STA that Scheme is a sufficiently important standard, and relevant to their mission, to warrant their funding – I think the answer to this is a pretty clear ‘yes’, considering the sheer amount of development in Scheme that is happening at e.g. Spritely and funded through NLnet, explicitly within the framework of European digital sovereignty
• Whether the rest of WG2, being volunteers, could keep up with the pace implied by having a well-funded chair (officially, 10 hours/wk; unofficially, the amount offered is enough for me with my modest needs to take it full time)

I already have someone else trying to convince me to apply to Sovereign Tech Standards to work on a different project. Besides my work with Scheme, I am also in the presidium of Codeberg, which is growing at an incredible rate and is probably going to have a huge impact in FOSS over the next few years. (The other STS option I am being courted for is connected to my role at Codeberg.)
Even if I don’t apply for or am not awarded any STS funding, it is possible I will spend the next months working on growing Codeberg to the point where it will be able to hire me into an administrative role.

So, what do people want?

If we want to go for the Sovereign Tech Standards opportunity, I need to start talking to IEEE in this week. So quick answers preferred. I am back in #scheme on Libera Chat and open to questions and feedback there. Otherwise, reply to this mail publically or privately.

Thanks!


Daphne

[Peter McGoron]

(Sending this to lists that are most relevant.)

Whoever becomes the permanent chair, I think whatever outcome should be
aimed to decentralize power and responsibility from the chair to the
Working Group as a whole acting in meetings. That's how we have de facto
been operating, and it seems to be working well. Hopefully the new SC
can help with that, when all is are dotted.

I think Alaric does a good job as chair.

(I reiterate my preference for a permanent vice-chair. The SC could also
help with that.)

________________________

Regarding the IEEE stuff:

I am concerned about an IEEE standards effort, because the final IEEE
standard is not free (gratis, libre). I am also not sure of the
practical impact of a standard from the IEEE, as many current software
standards usually come from the W3C or the IETF.

IMO STS funding relating to Codeberg would be much more impactful,
practically speaking.

Looking at the IEEE standard with my university's subscription, the text
of it is very similar to R4RS, with the addition of IEEE stuff like a
glossary. So editing together an already-finished standard, like
R7RS-Small, seems possible.

If we can distribute a substantially similar draft, like how the C WG
does, it would be useful. I assume it would look like R7RS-Small with
errata incorporated, and maybe some changes from Foundations deemed
necessary.

I would be happy to help with it. (I'm not European, though.)

-- Peter McGoron

[Peter McGoron]

Small addendum: I have no objection to you continuing to chair, but if
you don't want to or cannot due to other responsibilities, I think
Alaric would work well as permanent chair.

-- Peter McGoron

[Zhu Zihao]

Daphne Preston-Kendal <d...@nonceword.org> writes:

> Dear Schemers,
>
> A few notes; probably a bit scrappy, sorry, it’s been a long busy weekend.
>
> First, to the steering committee election. Our independent overseer has not been
> reachable recently, but the election was uncontested – 3 candidates for 3 seats
> – and so I can unofficially call Arthur Gleckler, Shiro Kawai, and Marc Feeley
> the members-elect of the new steering committee. An official announcement will
> follow once I can finally get hold of Daniel to confirm it.
>
> Second, to the future of WG2 and my chairship of it. I have taken a break from
> chairing WG2 since the beginning of the year, and several members of WG2 have
> stepped in as acting chair and acting editors to fill my role in the meanwhile.
> I am very grateful to them; I think being without me for a while has actually
> enabled the WG to grow in its independence from the chair in a positive way.
>
> However, it is clear that the situation of the permanent chair being only available part time is not sustainable as the WG is picking up speed.
>
> Therefore the question is: what is the future of my role as chair?
>
> Does the WG want me to return to active duty as permanent chair?

I'm very happy to see if you can return to active duty as permanent
chair.

>
> For information about my personal context:
>
> From next month (June) I will probably be unemployed again. I am considering *many* options for my future.
>
> For one, I am open to returning as active chair. There is an opportunity which would be great for me if I were to do this: Germany’s Sovereign Tech Agency announced a grant for people working on specifications this week.
> <https://www.sovereign.tech/programs/standards>
> Officially, only W3C, ISO, and IETF standards are eligible. I have taken advice
> from someone in the know and they think that an IEEE standard would probably
> also be okay. So if we were open to reviving the idea of Scheme as an IEEE
> standard, I could take on the role of chair and editor and be paid sufficiently
> that I could consider Scheme my primary job.
> Questions:
> • Whether we could re-activate the IEEE process fast enough, or at least have a credible guarantee of being able to do so (deadline is 19 May)

I took a look at the IEEE standardize process
<https://standards.ieee.org/develop/>. As I understand it, this won't
bring about many changes to WG's current working flow (open for
everyone, online meeting and ballots). So it seems to like a viable
approach.

However, I think we should hear the voices from SC (though not
officially confirmed) and IIUC only they can made final deicision on
this.

> • Whether the rest of WG2, being volunteers, could keep up with the
> pace implied by having a well-funded chair (officially, 10 hours/wk;
> unofficially, the amount offered is enough for me with my modest needs
> to take it full time)

I think I can keep up with this pace over the next 6 to 9 months. As for
long-term future, I'll try to take things one step at a time.

> If we want to go for the Sovereign Tech Standards opportunity, I need to start
> talking to IEEE in this week. So quick answers preferred. I am back in #scheme
> on Libera Chat and open to questions and feedback there. Otherwise, reply to
> this mail publically or privately.

I personally prefer the IEEE way.
--
Retrieve my PGP public key:
执行下列命令以获取我的 PGP 公有密钥：

gpg --recv-keys B3EBC086AB0EBC0F45E0B4D433DB374BCEE4D9DC

Zihao / 閱卜錄
Date: Mon, 04 May 2026 16:34:28 +0800

[Zhu Zihao]

Zhu Zihao <all_bu...@163.com> writes:

> I personally prefer the IEEE way.

BTW, have you considered ECMA standard? It seems to be better than IEEE at open access.

[John Cowan]

As I posted on #scheme last night, OASIS <oasis-open.org> would also
be a possibility. Their process is quite lightweight, requiring only
five members (individual or organizational) to launch a Technical
Committee, and their materials are open to all.

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[Vincent Manis (he/him)]

I was wondering whether ECMA would be a better fit, and had not
considered OASIS. Public accessibility of the standard (and not of a
draft, as with so many ISO standards) is essential. -- vincent

[Daphne Preston-Kendal]

On 4 May 2026, at 00:05, Peter McGoron <pe...@mcgoron.com> wrote:

> Regarding the IEEE stuff:
>
> I am concerned about an IEEE standards effort, because the final IEEE standard is not free (gratis, libre). I am also not sure of the practical impact of a standard from the IEEE, as many current software standards usually come from the W3C or the IETF.
>
> IMO STS funding relating to Codeberg would be much more impactful, practically speaking.
>
> Looking at the IEEE standard with my university's subscription, the text of it is very similar to R4RS, with the addition of IEEE stuff like a glossary. So editing together an already-finished standard, like R7RS-Small, seems possible.

The way this would probably work is basically similar to how you suggest: there would be a freely available R7RS large standard, and for people who need a document with an IEEE seal of approval on it, they can pay to buy the substantially similar IEEE 1178:203x (for some hopefully small (possibly even negative) value of x). This would mirror the relationship between R4RS and IEEE 1178:1990.

The Sovereign Tech Fund is supposed to follow a ‘public money, public code’ rule. I already don’t know how this will work for ISO standards considering they are also paywalled; possibly there will be a solution like has been implemented for European standards (ISO standards which have become part of European law), where one can get a free copy by requesting it from the European Commission. I would be sure to check up on that if we end up doing this.


Daphne

[John Cowan]

On Mon, May 4, 2026 at 11:32 AM Vincent Manis (he/him)
<vman...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I was wondering whether ECMA would be a better fit, and had not
> considered OASIS. Public accessibility of the standard (and not of a
> draft, as with so many ISO standards) is essential. -- vincent

I don't agree. Smalltalk is an ANSI standard and APL is an ISO
standard, but the publicly available drafts are the same as the actual
standards in content: only the front pages and the formatting are
different.

Closer to us, ISLisp was developed by a threefold process: ISO/IEC JTC
1/SC22/WG16 decided what the language would look like, a privately
funded committee (consisting of the same people) wrote the text and
dedicated it to the public domain, and WG16 reassembled, reformatted
the now-existing public domain document, and reformatted it to ISO
standards. See https://www.islisp.info/history.html for details.

[Wolfgang Corcoran-Mathe]

On 2026-05-04 08:32 -0700, Vincent Manis (he/him) wrote:
> I was wondering whether ECMA would be a better fit, and had not
> considered OASIS. Public accessibility of the standard (and not of a
> draft, as with so many ISO standards) is essential. -- vincent

I agree 100%. The following text has appeared in every Report since
the RRRS:

> We intend this report to belong to the entire Scheme community,
> and so we grant permission to copy it in whole or in part without
> fee. In particular, we encourage implementers of Scheme to use
> this report as a starting point for manuals and other documentation,
> modifying it as necessary.

If removing this text from the official Report becomes a condition of
developing R7RS with IEEE or with any other body, then I will no longer
be involved. In particular, I do not want the "blessed" version of
R7RS-large to be available only under a restrictive license. It's not
enough for drafts to be publicly available while the finished product
sits behind a paywall--it's all got to be public, distributable, and
modifiable.

Wolfgang

--
Wolfgang Corcoran-Mathe <w...@sigwinch.xyz>

[Peter McGoron]

On 5/4/26 11:32, Vincent Manis (he/him) wrote:
> I was wondering whether ECMA would be a better fit, and had not
> considered OASIS. Public accessibility of the standard (and not of a
> draft, as with so many ISO standards) is essential. -- vincent

I'm also concerned overall about how much working within one of those
standard's process will constrain us.

For one, we currently a one pseudonymous member of WG2, and I wouldn't
want some stuffy standard's organization's requirements to forbid them
from participating equally. (Dunno if any of ECMA/OASIS/ISO/IEEE has a
real-name requirement, but I wouldn't be surprised that they do, or that
if they effectively do.)

I'm not sure what OASIS does for "Open Projects," as their hyperlinks
just go to their respective websites. I don't know about OASIS's IP
policy for it's hosted TCs, but DocBook's prose license[1] is quite
restrictive. Restrictive licenses for the final document are an
inevitability for any "formal" standard: these organizations don't want
documents purporting to be "Standard Scheme" when they aren't.

These standard's orgs also usually have non-zero membership dues. $1,800
a year for an "academic" at OASIS. ECMA seems to only be for
institutions / companies. The IEEE is $300 a year for individuals.

[1]:
https://docs.oasis-open.org/docbook/docbook/v5.2/os/docbook-v5.2-os.html

-- Peter McGoron

[Wolfgang Corcoran-Mathe]

Daphne,

On 2026-05-03 22:42 +0200, Daphne Preston-Kendal wrote:
> Therefore the question is: what is the future of my role as chair?

I think this should be between you, yourself, and the incoming
Steering Committee. If you really want WG2 members to weigh in on
who they want, I'd rather it be by anonymous ballot. I consider
you and Alaric friends and I don't want to have to publicly choose
between you (or others).

> If we want to go for the Sovereign Tech Standards opportunity,
> I need to start talking to IEEE in this week.

I am all for you (or whoever the chair is) being paid for their
work, provided it doesn't come with legal strings attached (see
other messages) for the WG2 and for R7RS itself. This is an
interesting opportunity, and definitely one worth investigating
further.

--
Wolfgang Corcoran-Mathe <w...@sigwinch.xyz>