RE: [rights] tyranny of the majority but no consensus

[Krishna Sankar <ksankar@cisco.com>]

Folks,

	Dimitry, good e-mail.

	I agree with Dimitry. I do not think it is fair or
gentle-personly to question Hari's motives or methods. 

	With respect to motives, Hari has been more than fair and
patient during all the discussions. 

	With respect to methods, OASIS has well-defined methods to
handle stuff. Whenever issues were raised, they were put to a vote. I
think we are running fairly by the Robert's rules.

	BTW, I do not get this business of "taking steps to address the
bad feelings caused by the votes at the F2F". What do we do ? Buy the
folks some "spirits" ? Have quotas ? Or alternate between majority and
minority for success of a vote ? These are all beyond the chair of an
OASIS TC. Consensus is better, but in many cases voting is practical.
Folks, we need to move on. Also I favor evolutionary work with
incremental progress. It is not an all-or-nothing preposition.

cheers

|  -----Original Message-----
|  From: Radbel, Dmitry [mailto:dmitry.radbel@umusic.com] 
|  Sent: Thursday, September 19, 2002 7:42 PM
|  To: 'Bob Glushko'; rights@lists.oasis-open.org; 
|  rights-requirements-help@lists.oasis-open.org; 
|  karl.best@oasis-open.org
|  Cc: mnemonic@well.com; murray Maloney; liora Alschuler; 
|  rachna Dhamija
|  Subject: RE: [rights] tyranny of the majority but no consensus
|  
|  
|  Reading the steady stream of e-mails today which largely 
|  share the same subject, I figured I'll reply to the first 
|  one. I have joined the RLTC only two weeks ago so I have not 
|  witnessed how this sorry situation has come about, but 
|  clearly not all is well in RLTC. I find it particularly 
|  disturbing that some personally attack Hari Reddy's conduct. 
|  Reading some of the e-mails, he's been accused of improperly 
|  managing the TC process, of not following the rules, of 
|  "shutting down" the participants he does not agree with, and 
|  of ignoring in his analysis some of the submissions.
|   
|  My knowledge of and interactions with Hari are limited to 
|  the last week's F2F and yesterday's conference call. I 
|  thought that in both instances he did his best to manage the 
|  meeting and to allow people to speak during a very 
|  contentious debate. I also thought that he rather faithfully 
|  adhered to Robert's Rules, including management of the 
|  voting process. Per some of the e-mails, Hari is practically 
|  obligated to reach consensus rather than allow voting. 
|  Actually, the first TC chair responsibility listed in the 
|  OASIS TC Guidelines is to "keep the TC moving towards 
|  completion of its charter, on schedule." In the long list of 
|  TC chair's duties there is nothing about reaching consensus 
|  (surely it's desirable but not always possible).
|   
|  I did not want to base my judgement on a couple of meetings. 
|  But we do have a "paper trail", so I went to to RLTC website 
|  and reviewed the documents, the minutes of the meetings 
|  (from 5/21, 5/29, 6/12, 6/26, 7/10, 7/24, 8/7, and 8/21) and 
|  the e-mail correspondence. The minutes clearly show that the 
|  schedule that Hari is obligated to uphold - including 
|  timelines for draft requirements gathering and disposition - 
|  has been set quite a while ago and via a democratic process. 
|  I found the schedule in Hari's e-mail from 7/9 (there might 
|  have been earlier versions) and per minutes of subsequent 
|  meetings it has been reviewed regularly. The "RLTC 
|  Requirements" document indicates multiple iterations - I 
|  went to the e-mail threads and Hari posted all these 
|  iterations asking for comments. I have also found multiple 
|  threads which show that when people had specific and 
|  actionable comments Hari have been addressing them. And the 
|  requirements did not have to be dispositioned by 8/7 - 
|  Hari's documents clearly show that he co
|  
|  
|   
|  I don't understand the argument that Hari's work is somehow 
|  invalid because requirements were being mapped to the 
|  "initial set". Is the set wrong? Is the mapping wrong? Seems 
|  to me that the point here is that not all of the originally 
|  submitted requirements are presented verbatim - but how 
|  would one produce a meaningful requirements document without 
|  combining 100's of overlapping requirements into a concise 
|  set? And why is it Hari's fault that the requirement for a 
|  royalty free language implementation has been voted down? 
|  How can RLTC promise anyone royalty free language 
|  implementation when the whole area is full of patents?
|   
|  I don't understand why RLTC can't have Version 1 of the 
|  requirements and then have further iterations - most of the 
|  requirements documents I have ever dealt with were iterated. 
|  And it does not mean that requirements added in the next 
|  version are some kind of 2nd class citizens. I am reviewing 
|  the requirements and have some comments - but it does not 
|  mean that the TC has to delay its schedule until they are 
|  resolved to my satisfaction. I also don't understand why 
|  trying to synchronize with an international standards body 
|  (the goal which has been clearly stated in the minutes of 
|  the very first meeting on 5/21) is seen as some kind of 
|  sinister plot. Is not having common standards a good idea? 
|  What is the concern? We are not defining rights themselves 
|  but a language for expressing them.
|   
|  After reviewing the available documents, I personally think 
|  that Hari did an admirable job of compiling and processing 
|  requirements under difficult conditions. Bob, you are 
|  appalled by the votes (would you still be appalled if they 
|  did not go against you?) and you and others blame much of it 
|  on Hari for supposedly being partial, improperly biasing the 
|  work process, etc. The essense of it seems to be that he has 
|  an opinion which is different from yours and that some 
|  decisions that he has made are disagreeable with you. 
|  Frankly, I find such a personal attack - as you put it - appalling.
|   
|  Respectfully,
|   
|  Dmitry Radbel, VP Advanced Technology 
|  Universal Music Group
|  2220 Colorado Ave.,  Santa Monica, CA 90404 
|  Office 310-865-7801   
|  e-mail: dmitry.radbel@umusic.com 
|  
|  -----Original Message-----
|  From: Bob Glushko [mailto:glushko@SIMS.Berkeley.EDU]
|  Sent: Thursday, September 19, 2002 10:43 AM
|  To: rights@lists.oasis-open.org; 
|  rights-requirements-help@lists.oasis-open.org; 
|  karl.best@oasis-open.org
|  Cc: mnemonic@well.com; murray Maloney; liora Alschuler; 
|  rachna Dhamija
|  Subject: [rights] tyranny of the majority but no consensus
|  
|  
|  I am going to respond to the note from Mike Godwin below 
|  sent to me and Hari Reddy since I doubt that Hari will.
|  
|  I too am appalled by the recent votes at the F2F and on 
|  yesterday's conference call.  But neither surprised me.
|  
|  In the days before the F2F, I sent Hari several messages 
|  urging restraint in the face of the mounting pressure from 
|  the MPEG constituency in the TC to ignore the fact that the 
|  requirements process hadn't reached consensus but he didn't 
|  reply to me. He didn't reply to me afterwards either when I 
|  suggested he take steps to address the bad feelings caused 
|  by the votes at the F2F.  He has steadily lost the 
|  impartiality with which he began as the TC chairman and now 
|  predictably sides with the "party line" as defined by 
|  Content Guard and Microsoft, ignoring the fact that a 
|  substantial proportion of the members are opposed to the 
|  "damn the requirements process, full speed ahead" approach 
|  they advocate. 
|  
|  The critical votes were 11 to 10 and 12 to 9 on Thursday and 
|  10 to 8 yesterday.  This bare majority clearly demonstrates 
|  there is no consensus for moving forward at this pace -- and 
|  also demonstrates that there is little chance that a 
|  specification will be voted out of the TC for submission to 
|  OASIS, since far more than 1/4 of the membership will oppose 
|  it.  I am puzzled by the persistence of the MPEG side given 
|  this arithmetic.  No specification will be voted out of the 
|  TC without dealing with the full set of requirements 
|  submitted to it.  Do the math.
|  
|  I understand that some of the member companies in this TC 
|  have strong business interests to "get something out" but I 
|  also believed in its charter.  The first goal is said to be:
|  
|  Define the industry standard for a rights language that 
|  supports a wide variety of business models and has an 
|  architecture that provides the flexibility to address the 
|  needs of the diverse communities that have recognized the 
|  need for a rights language
|  
|  It is clear now that any community other than the MPEG is a 
|  second-class citizen whose requirements will be dealt with 
|  at some unspecified future time. It has been disingenuous to 
|  call for participation by user organizations and by people 
|  who care about legal and regulatory  issues and then vote to 
|  suppress any meaningful impact of their contributions.
|  
|  bob glushko
|  
|  
|  
|  
|  
|  
|  X-Sender: mnemonic@brillig.panix.com
|  Date: Wed, 18 Sep 2002 22:34:46 -0400
|  To: "Reddy, Hari" <Hari.Reddy@CONTENTGUARD.COM>,
|     "Mike Godwin (E-mail)" <mnemonic@well.com>
|  From: Mike Godwin <mnemonic@well.com>
|  
|  Gentlemen,
|  
|  I am astonished to hear that the wishes of experts 
|  contributing to the subcommittee were wholly ignored in the 
|  vote this afternoon.
|  
|  It seems clear to me that certain corporate members attended 
|  the meeting with the intention of circumventing the wishes 
|  of those who want to see the first version of the REL 
|  accurately express a full range intellectual-property rights.
|  
|  I hereby register my protest. I think this was immensely 
|  insensitive on the part of the corporate members, and am 
|  considering whether and how to publicize this subversion of 
|  a purportedly "open" standards process.
|  
|  This was the last thing I expected, given the 
|  representations that had been made to me about the 
|  subcommittee's work. In the time we had allotted this 
|  morning, I believe I demonstrated my willingness to help the 
|  committee reach a first edition of its work in a reasonable 
|  amount of time, and I point out that drawing a line with 
|  regard to submissions was my idea.
|  
|  I feel an immense sense of betrayal, and I imagine that 
|  other members do too.
|  
|  
|  --Mike
|  
|  
|  
|  -- 
|  --------------------------------------------------------------------
|  "I speak the password primeval .... I give the sign of 
|  democracy ...."
|             --Walt Whitman
|  Mike Godwin can be reached by phone at 202-637-9800
|  His book, CYBER RIGHTS, can be ordered at
|           http://www.panix.com/~mnemonic 
|  <http://www.panix.com/~mnemonic>  .
|  
|  --------------------------------------------------------------------
|  
|  
|  --
|  Robert J. Glushko, Ph.D.
|  http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~glushko 
|  <http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~glushko> 
|  School of 
|  Information Management & Systems
|  102 South Hall
|  University of California, Berkeley CA 94720-4600
|  
|  
|  
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