FW: [members] OASIS Board approves TC Process changes that address key issues

["John Borras" <johnaborras@yahoo.co.uk>]

A very important change for us at item 2 below - allowing Statements of Use
from non-Members.  This should now enable us to unblock the current problem
and move EML v7.0 onto full OASIS Standard approval and hopefully ISO.  From
memory we already have Statements from Peter and David so we just need one
more from the non-member sector.  Can you use your personal contacts with
non-member orgs, eg Scytl, to get an appropriate Statement of Use please so
we can move forward.

John

-----Original Message-----
From: Chet Ensign [mailto:chet.ensign@oasis-open.org] 
Sent: 31 July 2012 15:45
To: tc-announce@lists.oasis-open.org; members@lists.oasis-open.org;
chairs@lists.oasis-open.org
Cc: oasis-board-comment@lists.oasis-open.org; staff@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: [members] OASIS Board approves TC Process changes that address key
issues 

OASIS members,
 
As you know, the OASIS TC Process, the policy document governing work at
OASIS, is a product of your Board of Directors. Each July, the Board's
Process Committee presents its list of proposed changes to the full Board
for consideration. Any changes proposed are typically in response to issues
the Committee has observed or that have been brought to the Committee by
members. 

This past Wednesday, July 25th, the OASIS Board of Directors approved a set
of updates that address significant pain points we have observed over the
past few years. This email gives a short summary of the changes. I will hold
an online meeting in August to explain them in more detail and I will be
sending additional documentation in the weeks ahead.
 
The updated process takes effect tomorrow, August 1st. The changes:

	. Eliminate the need for public reviews for non-material content
changes
	. Allow Statements of Use from non-OASIS members
	. Ease the process of rechartering
	. Allow all TCs to make ballot motions by email without having to
adopt standing rules 
	. Clarify how a TC can close a sub-committee
	. Clairify that documents referenced in a proposed Charter must be
publicly available.
 
Each of these is discussed below. The attached PDF file is line numbered and
color highlighted to help you quickly locate the relevant sections of the
document.
 
1. Eliminate the need for public reviews for non-material content changes
 
The current TC Process requires a public review even if the changes made to
a draft are trivial (for example mis-spellings or broken links). This has
put TCs in the position of having to decide between holding a public review
of no value or approving a final document with known deficiencies.
 
Under the approved process, a TC will now be able to request a Special
Majority Vote to approve a Committee Specification or Committee Note when
the only changes since the last public review are non-material. The TC will
need to provide a record of the changes made along with their motion to
proceed with the ballot.
 
In order to ensure transparency and accountability, TC Admin will announce
such ballots to the membership. When the ballot closes, assuming it passes,
the draft will be published as a Committee Specification or Committee Note.
Note that should any OASIS member object that some of the changes are indeed
material, the ballot will stop and the TC will need to do another public
review. 

Based on my experience this past year, I expect this to reduce the number of
public reviews by as much as 25%. Even better, it will enable you to make
those last finishing touches that will improve the quality of your final
deliverables without incurring any process penalty.
 
See line 76 for the definition of "non-material change" and lines 670
through 697 for the description of the new approval process.
 
2.  Allow Statements of Use from non-OASIS members
 
Statements of Use are required before a Committee Specification can be
presented to the OASIS members for consideration as a Candidate OASIS
Standard. The current TC Process requires that all Statements of Use come
from OASIS members. For some TCs this has posed a barrier to advancing their
work because the TC is small and most implementations have been done outside
OASIS.
 
Under the approved process, a TC will be allowed to accept up to two of the
three required Statements of Use from non-OASIS members.
 
See line 139 for the new definition of "Statement of Use" and line 706 for
the change to the submission requirement.
 
3. Rechartering is now easier

Under the current TC Process, rechartering a TC has required starting a new
Kavi group, giving the TC a new name abbreviation and closing the TC for an
extended period of time. 
 
Under the approved process, the TC will keep its existing Kavi resources,
mailing list, document archive, etc. The TC will be able to continue working
under the original charter up to the week before the first meeting under the
new charter at which time members will need to rejoin the TC. Rechartering
will be far less disruptive to the TC's work schedule. 
 
See line 437 for the new description of rechartering.
 
4. Standing rules to allow ballot motions by email no longer must be adopted
as standing rules
 
Under the current TC Process, if a TC wishes to allow motions to open
electronic ballots to be made by email, the TC must adopt a standing rule
allowing this.
 
Under the approved TC Process, this is now standard practice and is
available to all TCs with no special action.
 
See line 480 for the new text allowing this.
 
5. Clarification on closing TC sub-committees
 
The current TC Process is silent on how a TC closes a sub-committee. The
approved TC Process clarifies that this may be done by resolution of the TC.
 
See line 489 for the new text.
 
5.  Documents referenced in a proposed Charter must be publicly available.
 
This change clarifies that if a document is referenced in a proposed TC
Charter, it must be available from a public source. Note that this does not
mean that it must be available by a hypertext link, but simply that there
must be some public source through which interested parties may obtain
copies.
 
See line 195 for the revised text.
 
I hope you find these changes help you work in OASIS more effectively.
Please let me know if you have questions on these changes and what they will
mean in practice.

Attachment: TC-Process-v1.0-Final.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document

/chet 
----------------
Chet Ensign
Director of Standards Development and TC Administration 
OASIS: Advancing open standards for the information society
http://www.oasis-open.org

Primary: +1 973-996-2298
Mobile: +1 201-341-1393






---------------------------------------------------------------------
This email list is used solely by OASIS for official consortium communications.
Opt-out requests may be sent to member-services@oasis-open.org, however, all members are strongly encouraged to maintain a subscription to this list.