A turning point for the context-driven testing community?

I recently attended the CAST 2014 testing conference in New York and one of the big things to come out of that conference seems to be the opposition to the new testing standards known as ISO 29119. This came about as a result of James Christie’s presentation about standards, which you can view online. A paper petition against 29119 did the rounds at the conference and this has now been made generally available via an online petition.

The idea is that there is clearly a lack of consensus in the testing community about such standards and it is part of ISO’s remit to consider if there is enough disagreement around the standard to say that it should not go ahead. This is all interesting enough in itself (though it’s not possible to see the standard in all its glory without paying for copy from ISO/IEEE) but it makes me wonder if this is something of a turning point in the context-driven testing community.

This petitioning against the standard is a very public voicing of the community’s different approach to software testing, a confident and strong expression of the community’s desire to improve the craft. This feels like the first time the community as a whole (rather than relying on some of the “big names” to make their points) has drawn a clear line in the sand and said which side they stand on.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out and whether the CDT petition can gain enough traction to force the ISO to reconsider this standard. (If you want to follow the action on this topic on Twitter, look for #stop29119)