NICE Standards

Standards Process

The following procedure for standards submission and acceptance was approved by NICE in March 2000:

1. A proposed standard (or a proposed amendment to an existing standard) may be developed by any process inside or outside NICE. A proposed standard may be submitted to the NICE Board by a sponsor, who must be a member of NICE
2. The sponsor shall indicate whether the submitted proposal is to be considered as:
   • an "Experimental NICE Standard", intended to open up some aspect of Eiffel technology to multiple implementations, or
   • a regular "NICE Standard", intended to standardise some aspect of Eiffel, or
   • a "Mandatory NICE Standard", intended to standardise some aspect of Eiffel that must be supported by every conforming Eiffel implementation.
3. The Board will not accept any proposal for a "Mandatory NICE Standard" unless the proposal has been a "NICE Standard" for at least twelve months, and at least two implementations exist.
4. The Board will consider each proposal, and will either:
   • reject it,
   • refer it back to the sponsor with a request for specified further work, or
   • approve it.
5. Any proposal approved by the Board must be submitted to a vote of the members.
6. An "Experimental NICE Standard" will be adopted immediately if approved by:
   • a simple majority of the NICE membership (regular and corporate members voting together)
7. A "NICE Standard" will be adopted immediately if approved by both:
   • a simple majority of the NICE regular members, and
   • a simple majority of the NICE corporate members.
8. A "Mandatory NICE Standard" will be adopted immediately if approved by both:
   • a two-thirds majority of the NICE regular members, and
   • a two-thirds majority of the NICE corporate members.
9. If a standard is rejected, it may be presented to the Board again with or without changes after a period of 30 days.