Re: [chairs] How to handle applicants and disclosures re TC participation

[Ian Robinson <ian_robinson@uk.ibm.com>]

Jamie, at some point the OASIS infrastructure is going to start enforcing
the following:
"Observers have read-only access to TC proceedings" ?

The TC I chair has 125 "Observers" many of whom contribute; I (and I assume
other chairs) would appreciate some assistance from the OASIS staff before
this change is enforced to identify which existing Observers qualify (or do
not qualify) to be switched to (non-voting) Member status.

At the very least, I would like to see a mail from the OASIS staff to all
OASIS members instructing them how they should proceed to retain their
ability to contribute to their respective TCs. If this means each member
needs to get their primary representatives to mail the chair of each TC to
which they currently contribute as an Observer, and a date by which they
need to do this, then that message should come once from the OASIS TC
admin, not the individual chairs.

Regards,
Ian Robinson



                                                                           
             James Bryce Clark                                             
             <jamie.clark@oasi                                             
             s-open.org>                                                To 
                                       chairs@lists.oasis-open.org         
             06/06/2005 19:47                                           cc 
                                                                           
                                                                   Subject 
                                       [chairs] How to handle applicants   
                                       and disclosures re TC participation 
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           




    TC chairs share responsibility for maintaining the roster of their TCs,
using our web-based tools on the TC's member "Roster" page.  In doing so,
please comply with our April 2005 changes to the TC membership rules in
Section 2(d) of the OASIS TC Process [1]:

    TC Observers:   Under the TC Process, any person with an OASIS account
(that is, either an individual OASIS member or the employee/representative
of an organizational OASIS member) is free to join any OASIS TC as an
observer.  Observers have read-only access to TC proceedings.
    TC Members:   Before the April 2005 TC Process revisions, an eligible
person who wanted to become a member of an existing technical committee was
subject to a waiting queue before acquiring membership.  Please note we
*changed* this rule in April.  Now, TC applicants who represent
organizational members require the approval of their organization's primary
representative.  As discussed earlier [2], once a TC member joins, voting
rights are contingent on attendance; but TC membership is not.
    Applicants have no status on a TC until and unless approved.  OASIS
staff is working on additional automation of this applicant process.  In
the short run, to help make this clear, we are renaming the class of
not-yet-approved TC applicants as "Applicants".  New applicants will queue
as "applicants", not as "prospective members".
    Disclosing TC Membership:   Answers to inquiries regarding membership
of a TC should use the same data we provide on the TC's public roster page.
That page lists the persons who have given their permission to be
disclosed.   Observers and applicants have made no commitment to a TC, and
should not be described as having a relationship to that committee.
    "Prospective Members".  This classification was previously used for
persons in queue for TC membership.  Unfortunately, in a few TCs, some
would-be TC members remained in queue in this state, and never were
advanced to "member."  We asked all TC chairs to review and clear up any
backlog on their rosters, prior to the April TC Process changes. [3]   Now
that we're approaching the 60th day under the rule revisions, we plan to
clean this up by *retiring* that role, except in connection with newly
launched TCs.  We will send separate instructions to you about roster
cleanup shortly.

    Best regards and thanks for your attention.

~   James Bryce Clark
~   Director, Standards Development, OASIS
~   jamie.clark@oasis-open.org

[1] http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/process.php#2.4
[2] http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/chairs/200506/msg00010.html
[3] http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/chairs/200503/msg00028.html