Retiring Obsolete Specifications

 

How Are obsolete specifications retired?

"Obsolete" doesn't mean old versions of active specifications, which are superseded by revised versions. Rarely but occasionally, an OMG specification will fall into disuse or (as in the case of OpenDoc) no longer be supported by the company responsible for it (or anyone else). OMG has a procedure to retire such specifications.

We won't go into detail here. The retirement process involves a series of votes similar to those required for adoption, assuring that all of OMG's members get their say in this important decision. Only two specifications have been retired so far: The XCMF management facility, whose functionality in CORBA object lifecycle management was superseded by the CORBA® Component Model (which, benefiting from years of additional industry experience, does a much better job) and OpenDoc, which formed part of the Common Facilities document and information management facilities before support for it was dropped by Component Integration Laboratories.