This document provides details on the updated final draft distribution of the ISO/IEC 19770-2 standard.  Please have a look at the questions and answers in this document for information that may be relevant to your organization.

What's happening with the 19770-2 Standard?

The draft standard ISO/IEC 19770-2, " Information technology - Software asset management - Part 2: Software Tag" has been approved to be submitted as a final committee draft and has gone through one last public distribution process to ensure consistent and accurate references as well as to validate the XSD structure.  During this editing process some modifications have been made to the schema as well as to conformance sections and examples.  For additional details of what changed in the standard, see the last questions in this Q&A document.  There are no outstanding review comments for this standard.

What is the purpose of distributing the updated draft?

We seek primarily to inform, and secondarily to ensure that there are no significant issues which have somehow been missed to-date, or which have been introduced by the latest final revisions.  We are not asking for another full public review, but rather giving a last chance for objections from the public.  What happens next is that the document goes under ISO/IEC copyright lockdown, and you will not be able to obtain a copy unless you are formally involved in the standards-making process.  The next formal stage is for the final working draft to be circulated as a Final Committee Draft to the National Bodies which are part of ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1 (JTC1) for their review and vote. 

In short, there is a final chance for any members of the IT industry - including those not involved in the formal standards-making processes - to raise concerns with the final editing that was done to the document.

How long is the period for raising final comments?

The draft is available for comment until September 19, 2008.  This review period is intended to allow all companies that may have an interest in creating or using software tags, the ability to re-validate the schema and ensure it will work in their environment.  Please download a copy as soon as possible and inform your peers, partners and associates of the standards availability.  The Other Working Group (OWG) developing this standard already has approval to submit our final working draft as a final committee draft (FCD) and once it is submitted, distribution of any other copies will no longer be allowed.  If significant issues are discovered during this short review period, please notify This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it immediately.

Where can I download a copy of the draft standard?

Download a review copy from one of the following web sites today!

                www.agnitioadvisors.com
                www.investorsinsoftware.co.uk
                www.IAITAM.org

How will the right people hear about the review?

There are a number of people who should hear about the final review period and you can help with that!  Please forward this notice to any SAM eco-system member you believe may be interested in software identification tags.  If you work for or with software publishers, please forward this information to the product management or licensing team.  If you work for an end-user organization, please forward this information to your desktop and SAM management team.  The more people who are familiar with this standard, the sooner software will become easier to manage from almost all perspectives!

How can I learn more about SAM standards?

Agnitio Advisors is putting in efforts to facilitate the communications process in support of this standard.  We've started a new communications forum where interested parties can ask questions about the ISO/IEC 19770-2 draft standard and experts involved with the OWG and other aspects of the SAM eco-system will do their best to provide answers.  The forum is available for any registered user on the Agnitio Advisors web site and registration is unrestricted.  If you're interested in posting a question, or viewing other people's questions and answers, register at www.agnitioadvisors.com.

Note that the ISO/IEC 19770-2 discussion forum is a subset of a much larger discussion forum covering a wide range of SAM topics.

Can I help promote the standard?

If you or your company would like to promote this standard, prior to it becoming an FCD, it is available for distribution by anyone without charge.   Once the standard becomes a final committee draft, it is no longer available for general distribution. 

What's the on-going schedule for the development of ISO/IEC 19770-2?

Here is a summary of the steps needed to move this standard from its current working draft status to International Standard ('IS') status:

• Working Draft is submitted for fast tracking as the Final Committee Draft (FCD) - this step has already been approved during the ISO Plenary in Berlin in May, and will be actioned by the Convener of WG21 at the end of this final validation process.
  

• Each country which is a member of ISO (technically, which is a permanent member of ISO/IEC JTC1 SC7) can vote for or against the draft and provide comments.  The voting period for an FCD is four months

• The draft is updated as required based on any comments received.

• The updated draft must be approved by the ISO/IEC JTC1 SC7 plenary meeting in May 2009 to be put to a vote as a Final Draft International Standard (FDIS).  This will depend on whether the countries consider that their comments have been satisfactorily addressed.

• Each country involved can again vote for or against the draft, but comments are no longer accepted.  The voting period for an FDIS is two months.

• Assuming the votes are positive, ISO then does a final edit of the draft for purely technical issues, and publishes the standard.  This process typically takes several months.

Though the process can take a significant amount of time, we do not expect the technical content of the standard to change significantly as the draft moves toward becoming an official ISO standard.  We expect that a number of companies will start working with the final schema defined in this draft of the standard as the defacto standard.  A number of software publishers have already seen the value that the tagging standard provides to both them and their customers and are currently in the process of providing software tags for their products.

What changed in the draft during the last edits?

The working draft from the April of 2008 public review addressed all outstanding comments the OWG received.  The working draft had one last editorial review completed to minimize the likelihood of minor terminology issues becoming show-stoppers.  During this review, we identified a number of cases of inconsistency in the use of terminology.  Additionally, the XSD was reviewed to ensure all elements were defined consistently.

The following is a list of principle changes to the earlier draft:

• More explanatory information:

• A revised introduction
• An additional Annex to give a conceptual overview, to facilitate understanding

• More consistency and completeness in conformance language:

• "Should" and "shall" instead of "may" and "must", for example.
• Addition of conformance language for 3^rd party tag creators.

• More consistency and more explicit definition of the different tag roles:

• Addition of three identifier elements - software_creator, software_licensor, tag_creator.
• Additional elements to specify which entity owns which tag elements.
• Additional copyright details element.

• More extensive explanation of requirements for tag filenames:

• Additional details on filenames of software tags during distribution or after installation of software.
• Clarification of alternatives for installed tag filenames.

• Updated XSD specification and examples to match other changes.

There has been no change in scope during this editing process.

How do I update my e-mail distribution preferences?

You are receiving this e-mail because you've either expressed an interest in SAM standards, or in SAM policies.  As the draft ISO/IEC 19770-2 moves through the formalized ISO/IEC process, Agnitio Advisors will provide you with information about its progress.  We will also, from time-to-time be providing other information on topics related to standards in the SAM environment, including reference models, standards-based training availability and communications venues that may be helpful to people involved in the overall SAM Eco-system.  If you would prefer not to receive these updates, please send your name to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it and your e-mail will be removed from the distribution list.

If you know people who would like to be added to the distribution list, you can have them send an e-mail to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .