Author: James Swafford
Date: 13:08:58 09/10/01
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On September 10, 2001 at 13:19:37, Bruce Moreland wrote: >The PGN standard seems to be owned by Steven J. Edwards. The standard is >extremely important, and he hasn't made any changes to it for the past several >years, so there is now an attempt to declare him unimportant and change the >spec. > >A post detailing these changes was submitted to r.g.c.c. a few days ago. The >changes are being authored by: > >Alan Cowderoy (Palamede), Ben Bulsink (DGT Projects), Andrew >Templeton(Palamede/Palview), Eric Bentzen (Enpassant.dk, Palamede), Mathias >Feist >(Chessbase), Victor Zakharov (Chess Assistant). > >I know who some of these people are, but not all of them. DGT makes chess >boards, CA and CB are well-known, and Palamede looks like it's just a chess >website. > >There are many topics for discussion here: > >1) Is Steven J. Edwards out, and if so, is this how ownership of the standard is >supposed to be passed? Steven wrote the standard. It's his. I don't see how anyone can simply revise it and stamp it "PGN". Maybe call it something else, but it won't be PGN without Edwards being involved. > >2) Is this a fait-accompli since Chessbase and Chess Assistant have apparently >signed on to this? I hope not, but who knows? > >3) Does anyone have anything to say about the changes proposed? Are they good >changes? I can understand the need for change in regards to the clock. I've wondered myself why there wasn't something in the standard about that. It really does need to be improved. What other changes are proposed? Could you briefly outline them? (I don't read rgcc, haven't for a couple years now.) Has anyone contacted Steven to see if he'd be willing to work with them, or has he dropped off the face of the planet? I'd be in favor of couting him in, or at least getting his approval. If he's truly not involved anymore, or is unwilling to become involved, then changes still need to be made, but it wouldn't be PGN. Consider what would happen if anybody had authority to just take a standard, change it to their liking, and say "this is the new standard." That is obviously not the way to go. I haven't put any thought into the logistical issues you mentioned, but I am certainly in favor of improving the standard. -- James
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