RE: [election-services] EML 530 schema?

["John Borras" <john@pensive.eu>]

Joe

From the very outset of EML we have recognised that local jurisdictions
would need to localise the standard and indeed in our documentation we
have shown them how they can do that with Schematron.  So it is fully in
order for CA SoS to introduce local variations, in this case a 530, for
their own purposes.  When we in the TC come to scope our next release we
should and do review any local variations to assess whether there are
generic enough to include in the next version of the standard or whether
they are so local specific that they do not warrant inclusion.  So there
will always be situations were local use gets out of step or has
variants to the approved standard.  We cannot stop that nor should we
seek to do so. Observers and potential other users need to be careful of
what is being used in any situation and check how much is "non-standard"
and make their own decisions or seek our advice on whether they should
copy that implementation. 

So I do not see any issue about this unless the CA SoS claimed that
their implementation was totally EML compliant. If that was the case
then we should have either corrected that mis-information or made it
clear that we intended to adopt that change in our next release.  I
think the latter is the more likely in this instance.  We should also
recognise that David was acting on his own behalf when working for them
and not at that point as an agent for the TC.

I hope this allays your concerns but if you wish to discuss it further
then I'd be happy to add it to the agenda for our next TC call?

Regards
John

Skype:  gov3john
m.  +44 (0)7976 157745


-----Original Message-----
From: Joseph Lorenzo Hall [mailto:joehall@gmail.com] 
Sent: 01 May 2009 12:16
To: David RR Webber (XML)
Cc: eml
Subject: Re: [election-services] EML 530 schema?

A concern I have here is that we shouldn't provide draft EML schema to
organizations unless we've possed a canonical draft on the E&VS TC
repository.  For example, what if the XSD David releases on Monday is
substantively different than the one the CA SoS developed their system
against?  I still won't be able to validate the CA SoS' 530 releases
without getting their version of the 530 (or a diff).  That's not a
good thing.

I understand that we want to get things out and be as useful as
possible, but there are very good reasons EML is a *standard* and that
drafts are made available publicly via the OASIS web site repository
for our TC.  The 530 is not in the v6.0 alpha. (maybe it's somewhere
else?)

Can we formally or informally decide that in the future any
transmission of draft schema or documentation "intended for a future
release" will be mediated by the EML TC web site?  Or at least that
their is an opportunity for TC members (and possibly members of the
public) to get these documents?  If not, we risk not being an open
standard (we'd be a mostly open standard with closed and unclear draft
elements in production environments).

Anyway, sorry to be somewhat of a stickler here but this issue with
the 530 exposes some deficiencies in how we're operating as a
standards-setting TC.  I want to emphasize that David's doing a great
job and I don't think we'd be able to do as much (or much at all)
without him... however, we need to abide by certain formal
arrangements here.

best, Joe

On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 3:41 PM, Joseph Lorenzo Hall <joehall@gmail.com>
wrote:
> Great!
>
> On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 3:35 PM, David RR Webber (XML)
<david@drrw.info> wrote:
>> This is already in the new V6 release.
>> I should have the next complete draft available for everyone over the
>> weekend - just doing some final polish on the documentation and
dictionary
>> side right now for our upcoming May meeting

-- 
Joseph Lorenzo Hall
ACCURATE Postdoctoral Research Associate
UC Berkeley School of Information
Princeton Center for Information Technology Policy
http://josephhall.org/

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe from this mail list, you must leave the OASIS TC that
generates this mail.  Follow this link to all your TCs in OASIS at:
https://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/portal/my_workgroups.php