Re: [office] News from IDA, ISO and TC roadmap

["Karl F. Best" <karl.best@oasis-open.org>]

This is very good news, and a great plan.

As Michael mentioned, OASIS has been successful in submitting completed 
and approved work to ISO before; the four ebXML OASIS Standards were 
submitted to ISO TC154 and given approval there. Note that the OASIS 
Liaison Policy (see 
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/liaison_policy.php#submitwork) 
requires that work be approved as an OASIS Standards before it is 
submitted elsewhere. We will also request of the other organization that 
the OASIS TC retain the rights to maintain the specification until such 
time as we're done with it.

Michael: Which ISO TC would this be submitted to? If it is a TC with 
whom we do not yet have an established liaison relationship we should 
start by applying for Class A liaison with them, as we have done with 
other ISO TCs.

I'm also happy to see the suggestion for a specific schedule for the 
next few months. It's always good to have a goal to work towards :-) 
Michael's outline of the schedule in regards to the OASIS TC Process is 
good; please see 
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/process.php#standards_approval for 
the normative text.

-Karl




Michael Brauer wrote:
> Dear TC members,
> 
> the work of our TC has drawn the attention of IDA (Interchange of Data 
> between Administrations). IDA is an European program that is managed by 
> the European Commission:
> 
> http://europa.eu.int/ida/en/document/2387
> 
> I think that's great news for our TC!
> 
> The IDA expert group did not only take a close look at what we do, but 
> also has published a few recommendations for us, and for others.
> 
> One of these recommendations is to submit the OASIS Open Office format 
> to ISO. At first glance, this may sound like hard work and like giving 
> up our TC. In fact, that's not the case. What it means is that as soon 
> as our Open Office format becomes an OASIS standard, we would ask OASIS 
> itself to take it to ISO, and to run a fast-track standardization for 
> exactly the OASIS Open Office standard there. The work of our TC would 
> not be effected by this. And we would still own the right to modify it 
> as needed.
> 
> In fact, we would not be first TC that asks OASIS to start an ISO 
> standardization process. Other TC's, for instance the ebXML ones, did 
> this as well. Their work has become ISO 15000.
> 
> I think submitting the Open Office Format to ISO adds a huge value to 
> our format, especially in the public sector, so I think we should fully 
> support this.
> 
> However, one precondition is that our format becomes an OASIS standard. 
> This again reminds me that we should make our planing for the next 
> committee draft and the OASIS standardization itself more concrete than 
> it is today. That's required independent of the ISO standardization 
> topic, because we have to make our charter clearer regarding our 
> deliverables anyway.
> 
> Since our first committee draft, we fixed many errors in the 
> specification document and the embedded schema. Many, but not all, of 
> these errors were found while actually implementing the format, so I'm 
> very confident that our specification currently has a very high quality 
> and that it therefore should be possible to get a new committee draft 
> ready within the next weeks. I also think that we can use this next 
> committee draft as basis for an OASIS approval for our 1.0 standard.
> 
> What we need are the following dates:
> 
> a) A date where we stop integrating proposals and start reviewing the 
> specification document. I could imagine that end of September is 
> appropriate here.
> b) A date where we stop the review and start the committee draft voting. 
> Since the changes we made since the last committee draft are rather 
> small, I could image that mid of October is appropriate here.
> c) A date where we start the public review of the committee draft prior 
> to the OASIS standard voting. I could imagine that end of October is 
> appropriate.
> 
> The review takes place for a minumum of 30 days, so it would be end of 
> November when it is finished. The subsequent schedule depends on the 
> feedback we receive during the review. If we have to make substantial 
> changes to the specification in order to address the feedback, then 
> additional review cycles are required. If no additional review cycles 
> are required, we might be able to forward the specification to the OASIS 
> administration by December, the 15th. The voting for the OASIS standard 
> then would take place in January. If the voting is successful, the ISO 
> standardization could follow as the next step.
> 
> Please note that this is only a roadmap proposal for our 1.0 standard, 
> but that we will of course continue to work on the format as stated in 
> our charter. Based on the experience we collected with our first 
> committee draft and the prepeparation of the next one, I suggest that we 
> plan to deliver a committee draft every six months.
> 
> I will put a discussion regarding our roadmap on the agenda for next week.
> 
> 
> Best regards
> 
> Michael Brauer
> 
> OASIS Open Office TC chair
>