M Development Committee
The M Development Committee (or MDC) was the organization formerly responsible for developing and maintaining the suite of M standards, released through ANSI and ISO. Its first released standard was released in 1977, as ANSI X11.1-1977, and its last standard was released in 1995 (ANSI X11.1-1995; also released as ISO standard 11756). It was sponsored by the M Technology Association.
When InterSystems bought up DTM, DSM, and MSM, it lost interest in standardization, complaining that the committee moved too slowly for a commercial product. Also, individuals within the VA advocated for lifting the restriction requiring the VA to use only standards-compliant M implementations to run its VistA EHR. The MTA was ultimately dissolved.
The Millennium Draft Standard (successor to the 1995 standard) was nearly ready for publication before the group lost all of its momentum, and the committee was put on indefinite hiatus. Whether or not there is a legal way to resume the activities of the legacy MDC is debatable, but as of this writing, no measurable work has been accomplished to that end.
Suite of Standards
- X11.1 - MUMPS Programming Language
- X11.2 - The Open MUMPS Interconnect (OMI)
- X11.3 - The Graphical Kernel System (GKS)
- X11.4 - The X Window System Binding (X)
- X11.6 - MUMPS Windowing API (MWAPI)
FreeM Compliance
FreeM attempts to be compatible with the Millennium Draft Standard (MDS), which adds a number of significant and powerful features above and beyond the 1995 standard.
FreeM currently implements more MDS features than any other known implementation.
See Conformance Clause for more information on FreeM standards compliance.
