Proposal for Defining a Generic Viewpoint in RM-ODP

The ISO/IEC international standard on the reference model of open distributed processing (RM-ODP) provides a framework for standardization of open distributed processing. It defines five viewpoints that provide a basis for the specification of distributed processing systems, but it does not provide generic rules on how viewpoints should be constructed. This paper proposes a generic viewpoint in RM-ODP that specifies how viewpoints should be constructed in general. Specific viewpoints can be developed by customizing the generic viewpoint. In this way, viewpoints can be defined in a more concise and harmonized way. User communities can also define viewpoints not currently defined by RM-ODP in a systematic way.