IVI-a users perspective

The Interchangeable Virtual Instrument (IVI) Foundation was formed in 1997 by Instrument manufacturers and integrators desiring the development of instrument driver models which would support instrument changes without requiring test program changes. This was to be accomplished by developing instrument classes and the specifications to define them. During the development process, the scope of the Foundation widened to include both IVI-C and IVI-COM driver interfaces. As the first group of driver specifications have been released and revised to include COM architecture, implementation questions have been raised by driver developers and system integrators. The Common Code Component Model Group was formed to address concerns of ownership and control of IVI software modules. This paper addresses the user community concerns on ownership, configuration control, release, compliance testing, and others. The IVI Foundation position on each of these concerns is explained. In addition, the status of the development effort will be addressed