ebXML Messaging TC Conference Call Minutes

29 January 2002

Presiding:

Ian Jones, Chair

Participants:

Ralph Berwanger

Doug Bunting

David Burdett

Sanjay Cherian

Cliff Collins

Colleen Evans

Chris Ferris

David Fischer

Scott Hinkleman

Kazunori Iwasa

Jeff Turpin

Peter Wenzel

Regrets

Himagiri Mukkamala

Note: There was not a quorum present.

Discussion

1. Issues List and Document Review Cycle / Staging

IJ: Ralph has volunteered to coordinate the issues list. How do we close the list over the next month. What is the process?

CF: proposal. Review outstanding issues raised, vote on them and deal with them. Produce another draft of the spec that we put forth to approve as a technical committee specification, and forward that to the OASIS membership for approval. We need to approve that stage of the process as well.

RB: Release 2.1?

CF: Yes. Would supercede current version 2.0 committee specification.

RB: Where are all the outstanding issues from Chris and Doug?

CF: In three emails – Chris has compiled his in the format of W3C and will ask if this is something we can use – copyright issues?

DougB: In addition to the 3 emails from Doug and Chris, there are also a few issues that Iwasa and ? originally raised. Bulk in the 3 emails from Doug and Chris, but there are a few other scattered on the list since the 2.0 was published.

CF: Arvola sent a couple of new ones too. Majority of issues are editorial in nature and intended to provide clarification, don’t impact technical content.

IJ: Question about way BTP is handling their list was raised last week. Ian investigated and it’s based on text files and Perl scripts. Author is willing to share the technology, but requires someone with a good knowledge of Perl.

CF: What about W3C XMLP list [gave a brief overview of how it works – XML document based]?

RB and IJ: Sounds acceptable

PW: CPP/A using MS database product that is flexible

IJ: We’ve gone that route before, it was good on-screen and had good management, but publishing was problematic and not everyone has access to the tools.

CF: Will pursue with W3C to see if there are any issues with our using this.

DougB: Also suggest putting source DTD and style sheet up there as well, which is what W3C has done, because then anyone can go download the right files and make the changes they think are appropriate.

IJ: Ian has total control over our web area. On another note, with regard to ‘tweaking’ a specification, there is no OASIS process to support this during the approval window. During the 3-month public review period, we need a way to make changes to the document to expedite it. If we can suggest process, it can be submitted as an amendment to the OASIS process that could be in effect when we get to that stage around March, so we wouldn’t have to wait until June to resubmit with any revisions. The doc could be amended but would have to include the errata changes made, which is distributed back to the membership at least 14 days before the start of the vote period (minor or flaw fixes – not new stuff).

DougB: Propose base doc not change during review, but create separate errata doc that grows as comments are handled and

CF: Make reference to errata doc within spec itself so people know where to go look.

IJ: Dale has submitted this issue to Karl. Ian will put these ideas / suggestions to Karl so we can the guidelines changed in time for our review period. Now we’ve agreed on a method of capturing issues, if Chris can get the W3C approval and gets it to Ian, Ian will get it put on the web site with appropriate links, etc. so people can see it’s there. Ian has posted a suggestion of basic rules for comments to the list that would be used to ensure we got sensible comments and information we could work with. People should review this and add anything else required.

DF: Need to establish a FIRM deadline for comment.

CE: Added some other items to the list in an email this morning.

DougB: Question – on Ian’s comment earlier re: submitting comments in the form of XML documents. Might be going a bit far. We should probably describe all info that must be submitted and ask for it in a text message, not HTML, or……

IJ: Ian will create a plain text format of the list of comment criteria that can be downloaded. Comments can then be submitted using that form in either XML or plain text. All information required must be included with each comment and it must be submitted only in XML or plain text.

DougB: Can help write macros to turn the plain text format into XML.

DF: Concern with opening this up for new comments. Should only be old comments that haven’t been addressed.

DougB: Problem with shutting it off is we haven’t asked OASIS community for comments.

IJ: Publish version 2.0 TC spec for implementation testing only, not guaranteed production level yet.

DF: There’s no way to get away from new comments when we turn this over to full OASIS body.

IJ: Would like to try and minimize them. By now we should have all comments from TC internally. Ian proposes to send a message to the list – everyone has until Monday to raise any new comments.

CE: Why go through two rounds – one internal now and then one on TC implementation version 2.0? Let’s combine into one round of comments.

DF: We keep moving the comments deadline, we should only consider old comments and not open it up for additional internal comments.

RB: Do I need to go out and consolidate outstanding comments?

DougB: Not entirely, Doug and Chris will consolidate their comments. Ralph could go to others who have outstanding comments and ask them to do the same thing, then he’d just have to concatenate.

IJ: Or let’s ask individuals to put their outstanding comments into new format.

DF: With a link to the original comment submission so we don’t open it up to new comments?

IJ: Make it part of what they put in the submission – cut and paste in original email text or a link to the archive. What date for cutoff as comments we haven’t addressed?

DF: Suggest January 4.

DougB: Suggest the end of the voting period.

IJ: Either the 8^th or 18^th January (8^th start of voting period , 18^th end).

Doug – can you live with the 8^th?

DougB: No, because then we can’t address non-negative integer.

RB: We need to address outstanding comments. We need to do that before the document goes into public domain [implementation]. Do we really want 2.0 in the public domain if we know it already has these outstanding comments?

DF: We will probably need two more rounds of comments.

DougB: Propose separate errata list, including suggestions for specific changes in the document, not just pointing to things that need to change.

CE: We’re talking about 1 round of changes, which includes outstanding comments plus anything received during implementation on 2.0. Or alternatively, 2 rounds of changes, outstanding comments into a 2.1 version, and then implementation comments resulting in a 2.2 version that becomes a new TC specification.

IJ: There’s not time for multiple rounds of comments. Do we want to publicize this now, or say we’re in our final review cycle.

DF: Let’s say nothing publicly and wait for 2.1. Can we cut off comments on January 18?

IJ: Have all UCC participants completed their testing?

DF: They will finish by the end of Feb.

IJ: Will we get any more feedback in that timeframe we will need to address?

DF: Everything in spec except multi-hop and sequencing has been tested, so there shouldn’t be any new issues.

IJ: Will put out a message listing Jan 18 as the deadline for comment. Feb 21 is the latest date we can vote to complete voting by Feb 28. Can go earlier if we’re ready. We need to get issues list up and running and close comments. Ralph suggested that most of the editorial changes should be bundled up and dealt with by a small group. Becomes an ‘accept all vote’, rather than a change by change vote for editorial changes (2.01 version). Non-editorial issues we’ll need to vote on properly as a group.

DF: Last meeting we voted that all changes, including editorial need to be voted on.

IJ: Only non-editorial items would be addressed on calls. Need next 3 weeks of con calls to get this done. Do we want calls on Mondays or Tuesdays? Any objection to Tuesdays at 1:00 pm EST, 10 am PST?

DougB: Maybe it’s a question for the list, since the people on the call are those who can make this time slot.

IJ: Need to put a note to list indicating voting meetings and what’s coming. Propose Tues Feb 5, Mon Feb 11, and Tues Feb 19.

DF: Do we need a call on the 5^th? We will be ready for a call?

IJ: Feb 5 call could be for the smaller group looking at proposed editorial change. Need volunteers [Ralph, Ian, David F., and Doug volunteered]. Ian proposes that this group determine if an editorial comment should be accepted or rejected.

RB: Propose a first cut where a sub-group categorizes issues as editorial or technical. TC discusses those proposed categories and agrees on what is editorial. A sub-group can then address all comments designated editorial and document their dispensation. Sub-group will be composed of some combination of Ralph, Ian, David F., Doug, Chris, David B., Sanjay and/or Arvola?

DF: Need two votes to progress the spec.

IJ: Can do the two votes in parallel: one on the TC specification and if approved, submit to OASIS.

Actions:

1. Ian to put note out to list indicating deadline for comments to be considered this round (Jan 18), process for submitting issues to the issues list, and scheduled meetings (indicating which are voting meetings).

2. Ralph will host TC call on Monday Feb 11.

3. David F. will host call for editing team early next week

Next Call:

Monday, February 11 at 1:00 pm EST / 10:00 am PST

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