PAC process

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

Karl has given me permission to forward the message below to the
list.  I would like to put this on the agenda of the conference
call we've scheduled for May 30 (11 a.m. to 1 p.m. California
time, as we decided in our last call; details will follow in the
next couple of days).

Jon

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From: "Karl Best" <karl.best@oasis-open.org>
To: <jon.bosak@eng.sun.com>
Cc: "Karl" <karl.best@oasis-open.org>
Subject: what I wanted to talk about
Date: Mon, 14 May 2001 07:46:43 -0400

Jon:

What I wanted to talk to you about this week was the process used
by the PAC.

Over the past few weeks I have mentioned to a few members that the
PAC had started discussions to revise the TC Process
document. These conversations came about because of ebXML
transition questions, etc. A couple members were surprised to
learn of the existence of a PAC, and one in particular was quite
interested to know how his company could become involved and
contribute to the revision. He was actually a bit upset to learn
that the PAC exists and is, from his perspective, operating in
secret. I pointed out that the list archives are publicly
available, but he responded that unless someone knew that there is
something to look for, and what to look for, the PAC is
essentially a secret. This goes against OASIS' otherwise very open
process. I verified this by looking on the web site for any hint
of the existence of a PAC, and found that unless one knew to look
at a mail list named "workprocess", or read 18-month old board
meeting minutes very carefully, the existence of the committee is
secret.

I brought up this concern with the board in a call a week or so
ago, as the PAC is a board committee, and the response of a couple
of the board members was to trust your judgement on the
matter. So, I'll raise the issue with you, and would like to make
some suggestions.

1) At the very least, the PAC should announce its existence. I
could help you do this if you would like. A statement to the OASIS
membership regarding the existence of the PAC, its charter and
goals, etc. would, I think, be very interesting to the
membership. They deserve to know how their TC process came about
and is being maintained.

2) In my opinion membership in the PAC should be opened up to a
few new, qualified of course, participants. While the current
members were selected based on their experience and expertise on
the subject of technical committee process, they are not by any
means the only people now in the consortium who have that
expertise. OASIS has grown considerably since the PAC was first
chartered nearly 18 months ago, we've grown well beyond our SGML
heritage, and there's a lot of new members who could have
something to contribute -- perhaps even some who may have actual
experience with the sort of dual-level system that we need to set
up. I'm impressed by the expertise of a few of the members of some
of the new committees (the Security and the BTP TCs come
immediately to mind); could we take advantage of some of this new
talent?

In addition, the TC process is very important to the involvement
of members in OASIS. We go to great lengths to conduct elections
for board members so that the members may have a voice in the
running of the consortium, but the TC process actually effects
more members on a more regular basis; shouldn't they have a voice
in that matter also?

Basically, what I'm suggesting is that we use pretty much the same
process, or at least the same philosophy, to create our TC process
as the TC process embodies. The guiding principle of OASIS is
openness and democracy; that should also apply to how our process
is created.

</karl>
=================================================================
Karl F. Best
OASIS - Director, Technical Operations
978.667.5115 x206
karl.best@oasis-open.org  http://www.oasis-open.org
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