Temporary Standard [ T ]

Emerging Standard [ E ]

Recommended Standard [ R ]

Not Recommended Standard [ N ]

Undetermined Status [ ]

Pending any formal adoption of a standard for NATO CALS application a system of recommendation will be adopted. Where determined, this recommendation is shown in Column 1 under each heading:

Temporary Standard [ T ]

Temporary Standards are either de-facto standards from industry or academic development bodies or standards organisations that have been widely adopted and are available in COTS implementations from commercial vendors. If such a standard becomes an ISO standard it will be adopted as a Recommended Standard. If it is superseded by an approved ISO standard that is adequately supported by implementation tools, then it will be dropped.

Emerging Standard [ E ]

An Emerging Standard is a de-facto or de-jure standard appropriate for CALS application but which has not (yet) been adopted or taken under consideration by an international standards organisation. These can be Draft International Standards (DIS) or National Standards or approved International Standards without product support. Emerging Standards generally do not have approved product support (COTS tools).

Recommended Standard [ R ]

A Recommended Standard is one which has been approved by international standards organisations such as ISO, IEC, or ITU-TSB/CCITT and which are supported by an adequate number of COTS implementations or tools. These standards have priority over Emerging Standards and Temporary Standards.

Not Recommended Standard [ N ]

A "Not-Recommended" Standard is one which has been approved by international standards organisations, but which does not comply with modern CALS Philosophy and which has been superseded. These standards may be in current use, but it is not recommended that they be used in future applications.

Undetermined Status [ ]

Unless one of the above indicators has been used the status of the standard should be regarded as undetermined at the date of publication so far as NATO CALS Policy is concerned. Normally this designation will only be used in initial drafts of new sections of the Handbook.