The purpose of this part of ISO/IEC TR 10000 is to provide the context for functional standardization in support of Open System Environments (OSE). It provides principles and a classification scheme for OSE profiles which may be or have been submitted for ratification as International Standardized Profiles (ISPs).

ISO/IEC TR 10000-1 defines the concept of profiles that are documented as ISPs. This part of ISO/IEC TR 10000 outlines the basic OSE objectives and concepts, and defines an approach and format for OSE profiles specified by International Standardized Profiles. It gives guidance to organizations proposing Draft OSE ISPs, on the nature and content of the documents which may be submitted for ratification as International Standardized Profiles.

An OSE is defined as a comprehensive set of interfaces, services and supporting formats (including user aspects) enabling interoperability and portability of applications, data or people, as specified by information technology standards and profiles. Communication protocols are part of the specification of behaviour at certain types of interfaces.

Each OSE profile is created to satisfy a clearly specified set of user requirements. Since profiles will be proposed according to needs identified to SGFS and according to the progress of international base standardization, the Taxonomy will be periodically updated or have new parts added in order to reflect the progress reached. It is also recognized that there will be proposals for the extension of the taxonomy to cover functions which were not identified during the preparation of this edition of ISO/IEC TR 10000. These extensions may be identified by a variety of proposers and involve simple extensions to the existing Taxonomy or the addition of new functional areas not currently covered by ISO/IEC TR 10000. The inclusion of such extensions is administered following the procedures elaborated by SGFS.

A distinction has been made between a profile and an ISP which documents one or more profiles. The Taxonomy is only concerned with profiles, but further information is given in the “Directory of ISPs and Profiles contained therein” as to which ISP contains the documentation of a profile.

This Directory is maintained as an SGFS standing document SD-4 (see reference in Annex A). For each draft profile submitted to SGFS, it will also provide additional information, including the status of the identified profiles.