Re: XML.ORG Advisory Committee

[sutor@us.ibm.com]

"bad as this might appear on the outside" ??

To whom? I suspect I could find critics of any
particular choice.

I'm not thrilled by the introduction of politics
into this discussion, especially when it is delivered
by proxies for a supposedly offended megacorporation.
At no time since the end of May did any of you step
up or offer to chair or coordinate this activity.
It is rather late to take offense now.

Have a good weekend and presumably I'll see
some of you next week at XTech.

..........................................................
Bob Sutor
Program Director, XML Technology
716-243-2445 / Fax 716-243-1778 / Tieline 320-9138
Cellular 716-317-6899 / Pager 1-800-946-4645 PIN # 1473757
sutor@us.ibm.com


Jon Bosak <Jon.Bosak@eng.sun.com>@lists.oasis-open.org on 02/25/2000
08:47:52 PM

Please respond to xmlorg@lists.oasis-open.org

Sent by:  owner-xmlorg@lists.oasis-open.org


To:   xmlorg@lists.oasis-open.org
cc:
Subject:  Re: XML.ORG Advisory Committee



[Bob Glushko:]

| I don't think that the OASIS board should tell the paying sponsors
| of xml.org who their chairman is,

Formally, XML.org is a creation of the board.  If it's an OASIS
project, the board has final authority over everything about it,
including its chair.  So say the bylaws.

| and the fact that IBM is treating the chairmanship as something it
| can pass down a line of succession makes it difficult to refute
| Microsoft's dogma -- the only reason that Michael was acting in
| the capacity of chairman was because IBM had done exactly that.

I don't like the message that an IBM chair sends to the larger
world either, but the fact is (as far as I know) that none of the
rest of us expressed an interest in taking this on or offered a
resource to do it.  I don't think IBM can be criticized for
filling the vacuum, bad as this may appear on the outside.

My problem with the resolution creating the committee is that it
names an individual to a spot that should either have been ex
officio or determined by some specified external process (election
by the members of the XML.org AC, for example).  I believe that
the board was within its formal authority to name a particular
individual as chair while defining everything else about the
committee in terms of role, but as a piece of procedural design it
is mighty ugly.

In looking at my advice to the board (which was in reply to a
query from the board and therefore not copied to this list) I see
that I didn't make this quite as clear as I thought, so I suppose
that I am partly to blame for this state of affairs.

[Terry Allen:]

| | If Michael so restricted, we want to have someone else
| | additional on the committee who is able to do so. We
| | understand that each organization gets one vote.
| |
| | Jon, Terry?
|
| He's restricted only from casting a vote when his
| vote wouldn't matter, as I read Robert's.  He's not
| restricted from offering a motion.  Unless Jon
| understands otherwise.

He's entitled to vote only when his vote *would* change the
result.  But this is for a full assembly.  In a committee,

   Instead of the chairman's abstaining from speaking and voting,
   he is usually the most active participant in the discussions
   and work of the committee.  (RROR p. 213)

So a committee chair has the same rights as any other member.
This necessarily means, however, that IBM doesn't get another
representative.  What the board has done, in essence, is to name
IBM's representative for them.

As I said, not a pretty design...

Jon