Minutes of the OASIS PAC meeting 2001.04.18

[bosak@ort.Eng.Sun.COM (Jon Bosak)]

Sorry this has taken so long to pull together.

Karl, please forward these minutes to the board when you get a
chance.

Jon

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MINUTES OF THE OASIS PROCESS ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING 2001.04.18

Voting Members Present

   Karl Best
   Jon Bosak (chair)
   Robin Cover
   Eduardo Gutentag
   Debbie Lapeyre
   Tommie Usdin
   Lauren Wood

Regrets

   Ken Holman

Observers (from the TAC)

   Norbert Mikula
   Patrick Gannon

Proceedings

   Debbie Lapeyre was unable to act as secretary this meeting, so
   the chair took notes and has prepared these minutes.

   The chair confirmed that Terry Allen has resigned from the PAC.

   We discussed several things:

    - The desire of the OASIS board to be able to form joint
      initiatives (such as a joint OASIS and CEFACT initiative)

    - The desire of the board to set up official OASIS projects or
      "portfolios" using the TC process

    - The desire of the board to coordinate activities within such
      portfolios, or to form one or more bodies to which such
      coordination can be delegated

    - The desire of the board to create a "master plan" in terms
      of which related activities can be coordinated

    - The desire of the board to be able to approve or disapprove
      particular member initiatives based on formal standards of
      propriety, etc.

    - The desire shared by everyone to preserve a completely open
      process whereby members can organize initiatives within the
      OASIS infrastructure but not under the direction of the
      board

    - The need to make clear to the public which TCs represent the
      initiatives of OASIS as an organization and which represent
      the initiatives of groups of OASIS members who may or may
      not seek later ratification of their efforts through the
      OASIS standardization process

   PAC members reviewed the rationale behind the current structure
   (chiefly relating to scalability).  The chair pointed out that
   members of the PAC involved in the work of other standards
   bodies have observed the speed of their processes slow down as
   they attempt to coordinate an increasing number of parallel
   efforts and that the more distributed OASIS TC process had been
   designed specifically to avoid this problem.  The chair stated
   his opinion that the board is misguided in seeking more control
   over the process but is legally entitled to exercise such
   control.  It was observed that the board is determined to
   attempt such coordination whether or not it is advisable to do
   so.  It was also observed that the board wishes to be more
   proactive with regard to other organizations and to be able to
   create TCs that are strategically aligned with other
   organizations.

   The chair proposed, and it was agreed, to attack these issues
   by dividing OASIS initiatives into two categories: "OASIS
   Member Initiatives" that would explicitly be labeled as such to
   distinguish them from initiatives of the board, and "OASIS
   Portfolios" that would be created by the board in order to
   foster and coordinate work following a particular technical
   direction.  Member initiatives would operate according to the
   current TC procedures but would be carefully distinguished in
   announcements from OASIS Portfolios and would be subject to
   board veto during the 15 days provided by the process for
   administrative review.  OASIS Portfolios would each operate
   under the terms of a "Program Plan" or "Portfolio Charter" that
   would describe the technical framework under which each
   official OASIS effort would operate, and they would be directed
   by a coordinating body or technical advisory board that would
   (for example) be composed of the chairs of each TC in the
   portfolio.

   For the PAC, the plan of work implied by our discussion might
   look something like this:

    - Create a new process for OASIS Portfolios that reuses as
      much of the existing TC process as possible while providing
      TAB-like coordination over the activities in each portfolio.

    - Rename the TCs described in the current process "Member TCs"
      and add a process for board veto to the administrative
      review cycle.

    - Perform some housekeeping by reviewing all the bugs that
      have been reported against the process since it was adopted
      last summer.

   The actual resolution passed by the PAC at the end of the
   meeting reads as follows:

      That the PAC, with input from the TAC, develop a new section
      of the TC process that distinguishes formal, coordinated
      OASIS initiatives ("Portfolios") from uncontrolled Member
      Initiatives.

   Because of meetings and conferences scheduled for May, it was
   agreed that the PAC would begin meeting 30 May 2001 and would
   continue to meet every other week from 11 a.m. to 1
   p.m. California time until this work is done.

Submitted by Jon Bosak, Chair, OASIS Process Advisory Committee