Re: XSLT-CONFORMANCE Mailing List

[Terry Allen <tallen@sonic.net>]

Eduardo wrote:
| This is the rationale behind what would appear to be a heretical stand:
| 
| a) a group of Oasis members get together and say "hey, wouldn't it be
| cool if we had a TC for foo?" They may decide on the spot to propose
| one, or they may spend months discussing among themselves what foo is
| supposed to be. Should this be archived? No, how could it, this is
| all informal discussions well beyond the pale of the process.

I think you're talking here about a stage before the ACTC has
approved setup of a list, so there's nothing to archive.

| b) There may or may not be an Oasis-sanctioned preliminary meeting
| of the people involved in (a); however, at some point,
| 
| c) one of the above Oasis members sends mail to actc or its
| superceding authority and declares the intention of forming an
| Oasis TC.

But latecomers have no way to discover what has been discussed,
and others, perhaps thinking of setting up another committee on
the same topic, don't know the discussion (on an OASIS-sponsored
list, no less) is happening unless they caught the original Call
for P.  

| d) in due course, a mailing list is created; the main purpose 
| of which is to ensure
| that those who subscribe to the list have an opportunity to 
| volunteer as TC (voting) members. Should this be archived? The

Actually, the point is also to formulate the charter of the 
prospective TC, else there would be no point in preliminary
discussion.  

| more I think about it the more I think not. The purpose of the
| list at this point is non-technical; reviewing its archive would
| not "enlighten" late-comers, and it should not. Once the TC

Why would it not, why should it not?

| is started, technical discussion should start as if 'tabula
| rasa', and all that has gone on before should be viewed as 
| irrelevant (in the sense that no decision arrived at before should
| be seen as such). Having an archive of previous discussions would
| seriously jeopardize this.

There is no tabula rasa, there's the charter.  I agree
that the archive of the preliminary discussions isn't normative
for the TC, but while discussing the charter it's sure useful
to have.  And unless we set up some list of TCs-in-formation,
the list of archives at xml.org/archives/ is all that's visible
to the outside world about what's cooking.

| With flameproof gear in place,

Ah, you don't need it, Eduardo ...



regards, Terry