Calling all IMAGE users (TurboIMAGE and Image/SQL):

The SIGImage/SQL "pre-2002-SIB" enhancement ballot is now
up on the web and awaiting eager voters at:

http://www.interex.org/advocacy/survey/imagesql02.html

Hopefully the ballot is pretty self-explanatory (if you think not, blame
the writer, since the Interex web master just took what I sent him).
Polls will stay open until COB 31 December 2001;  i.e.:  PLEASE
VOTE BEFORE GOING OFF TO CELEBRATE THE NEW YEAR !!
(even though as a practical matter Interex office will be closed New
Year's Day, so you *might* be able to sneak in a ballot on 1 Jan).

The vote counter at the top of the ballot will count up your vote every
time you TAB out of a "Vote" field in which you enter a non-blank
value.  Please indicate your PRIMARY and SECONDARY reasons
for wanting each item that you vote for.  Name and email address
are required at the end.  EVERYBODY can vote;  you do NOT have
to be an Interex member.  When you hit "Submit" at the bottom and
no errors are generated, you should get a short "Thank you for
voting" message back.  ONE BALLOT PER USER.

The HP R&D Database Lab has confirmed that they WILL be doing
additional IMAGE enhancements between now and end of October
2003, so put in your $0.02 (or equivalent local currency);  or accept
that other people will decide what the HP Lab works on for the next
22 months.  The winning items coming out of this vote will be the
ones sent forward to the "coming real soon" next Interex SIB Ballot.


Special thanks to Interex for quick action on getting this ballot up.
Let me know if you have any questions or problems;  or email to
[log in to unmask]   for operational issues....


Given the 11-14 "end of sales" / "end of support" announcement by
HP, there is as you might expect a bit of a different "focus" in this
year's ballot.  A few highlights:

(1)   After consulting with the HP R&D Database Lab, I removed all
"High effort" items from the ballot.  With now just over 22 months to
go until HP essentially stops enhancing HP 3000 sub-systems
(except for critical bug-fixes), assuring that IMAGE is stable at the
end of October 2003 is a key concern.  Asking HP to launch major
efforts to implement extensive changes down in the guts of IMAGE
at this time is probably not a smart move (make IMAGE "thread
aware / thread safe", for example (unfortunately) ).

(2)   Some items that were essentially "nice to have" incremental
improvements in the way things have worked forever;  for which
there are relatively easy / long established work-arounds / methods
of doing what you want;  have been dropped from the ballot....
EXCEPT:  In some cases where I received "special pleadings"
from users that one or the other specific item not be dropped, I
listened to those pleadings.

(3)   Intent for remaining items on the ballot is for the most part to
focus on limited "Low" and "Medium" effort items that the Lab would
have a good chance of completing and carrying through the beta-
test and distribution process prior to October 2003;  that would for
the most part provide additional "transparent" functionality and / or
performance improvements  (O.K.:  Not true in all cases;  special
leadings or etc. again).

(4)   There are "no plans" to conduct a separate HPSQL ballot this
time around:  Again given 11-14:  The three remaining items in the
"Better ODBC Access" section are left to the three established 3rd-
party ODBC venders to address as and if required.  Ten items from
the "IMAGESQL Utility Program" section of the HPSQL ballot have
been moved back in to what is now the SIGImage/SQL ballot instead
of just the TurboIMAGE Ballot. Rest of the HPSQL ballot items in the
"New / Improved SQL Features" and "DBE Admin" sections for the
most part have either been done (AUTOINCREMENT datatype), are
"High effort", or were low vote getters last time around.

(5)   I don't claim perfection for this ballot, but it was time to shoot
the engineers (me) and do something;  to allow user input into the
next Interex SIB round....

Ken Sletten
SIGImage/SQL Chair

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