UBL TC choreography

[Jon Bosak <Jon.Bosak@Sun.COM>]

Members of the UBL Group,

Note that this message is also being copied to the new list

   ubl@lists.oasis-open.org

for the information of a few people who have subscribed to the
OASIS UBL TC mailing list but are not subscribers to the
bl-discussion list.

As all subscribers to the bl-discussion list know from previous
messages, the OASIS TC submission agreed upon by the UBL Group has
been accepted in OASIS, and we're now proceeding toward the
formation of the OASIS UBL TC on 29 October 2001.  Making the
transition from the UBL Group to the UBL TC shouldn't be terribly
difficult, but it does involve a bit of procedural dovetailing.
The purpose of this message is to cover two basic aspects of that
transition: handing off the work of the UBL Group to the UBL TC,
and management of the corresponding mail lists.

1. Handoff from UBL Group to OASIS TC

   To avoid confusion, it's important to be clear on the
   distinction between the UBL Group and the UBL TC.

   The UBL Group is an ad-hoc committee of companies and
   individuals working toward a Universal Business Language.  It
   has no status within the standards world, but it does exist as
   a voluntary association following its own procedures, which
   were specified by resolution of the Group at its meeting in
   Palo Alto 26-27 April 2001.  So at this point, the UBL Group
   has a generic legal status equivalent to that of a church group
   or a fraternal organization or a labor union.

   The UBL OASIS TC, on the other hand, will, when it is formally
   constituted, be a technical committee of a standards body,
   namely the Organization for the Advancement of Structured
   Information Standards, which is a nonprofit corporation whose
   process is specifically designed for the standardization of XML
   tag languages.

   The UBL Group already has some committees at work, as I will
   describe elsewhere.  Those committees have been tasked to
   report their findings to the UBL Group when it meets 29 October
   at facilities to be donated by Sun in the San Francisco Bay
   Area.

   The UBL OASIS TC does not yet exist.  As mandated by the OASIS
   TC process, the UBL TC will come into being when it holds its
   first meeting, which is also scheduled for 29 October at
   facilities to be donated by Sun in the San Francisco Bay Area.

   I propose the following schedule for 29 October:

      10h00 to 12h00: UBL Group meeting

       - Report of the committees formed in Montreal (August 2001)

       - Adjournment until the call of the chair (if all goes as
         intended, this call will never actually occur and the UBL
         Group will, in effect, cease to exist)

      14h00 to 16h00: UBL TC first meeting

       - Acceptance of input

         - UBL Group committee reports

         - xCBL

         - XEDI and VCML

         - other contributions

      - Formation of working committees

      - Liaisons

      - Other business

   The schedule for the rest of the meeting week has yet to be
   determined.  Under ordinary circumstances, I would expect
   something resembling the usual committee meetings on Tuesday
   through Thursday followed by a plenary to wrap up on Friday
   morning, but current events may require us to rethink this.
   The issues surrounding meeting logistics will be addressed in
   other messages, so please save your comments on this subject
   until we get to it.  Note that the reports to be received by
   the UBL Group from the committees created in Montreal when it
   meets the morning of 29 October will be nonbinding
   contributions to the work of the UBL TC when it meets that same
   afternoon.

2. List management

   The OASIS TC process mandates that when a TC is formed, two
   lists are created by OASIS for transactions related to that TC:
   a list for members of the TC and a list called the comment list
   for use by the rest of the world.  The idea is to incorporate
   as wide a range of thoughts and inputs as can be acquired while
   at the same time putting concrete decisions into the hands of a
   smaller group of people who are completely devoted to the
   effort and can be counted on to attend meetings and cast votes.
   The big group uses the comment list; the decision-making body
   uses the members' list.

   I have been attempting to reflect this basic distinction in the
   UBL Group by strictly distinguishing between voting members and
   observers.  It's my intention to populate the UBL TC list
   (ubl@lists.oasis-open.org) with the voting members of the TC
   (as determined at the first TC meeting 29 October, not as
   determined by the existing structure of the UBL Group) and to
   move everyone else on the UBL Group list, including observers
   in the current UBL Group, into the TC comment list
   (ubl-comment@lists.oasis-open.org).  We can discuss this
   further at the meeting.

   While the OASIS TC lists are accepting subscriptions now, they
   cannot be used for the actual business of the TC until 29
   October.  However, I will take advantage of the existence of
   the TC list by occasionally copying basic organizational
   messages like this one for the information of people who are
   subscribed to the TC list but not to the bl-discussion list.

Jon Bosak
Chair, UBL Group
Designated Chair, UBL TC