Re: [chairs] Re: Committee Notes

[Jeff Mischkinsky <jeff.mischkinsky@oracle.com>]

On Dec 15, 2010, at 4:02 AM, Gershon Joseph (gerjosep) wrote:

> Comments below, inline.
>
> Cheers,
> Gershon
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jeff Mischkinsky [mailto:jeff.mischkinsky@oracle.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, December 14, 2010 5:09 PM
> To: Gershon Joseph (gerjosep)
> Cc: Norman Walsh; Mary McRae; members@lists.oasis-open.org; chairs@lists.oasis-open.org
> Subject: Re: [chairs] Re: Committee Notes
>
>
> On Dec 13, 2010, at 11:38 AM, Gershon Joseph (gerjosep) wrote:
>
>> The DITA Adoption TC is *very* concerned by this. Our TC produced
>> about 10 feature articles in the space of less than a year, and
>> under the new process it would take us years.
> How does a 30 day public review add years?
> [Gershon Joseph (gerjosep)] There is a 30 day initial public review  
> period, then a 15 day review every time we update the document. I  
> doubt we'll get zero comments every time we do a public review.
[jm] You don't have to make changes in response to a comment. OTOH if  
someone points out something that is important enough to require a  
change, then i would submit that the TC wasn't really "done" and ready  
to approve a document as final.
>
>> Our concern is that by the time our non-normative feature articles
>> finally get to the users, they won't be relevant anymore. The
>> purpose of these feature articles is to educate the public on
>> upcoming features in the future DITA spec, and now we shall be
>> unable to deliver these well-received articles as fast as the market
>> requires.
>
> If the lifetime of these articles is on the order 30 days, then i have
> to ask why the bother/concern?
>   If its longer, then i don't see how 30 days is a big factor,
> especially since the docs are all public when they are still in draft
> stage.
> [Gershon Joseph (gerjosep)] The lifetime of the document is probably  
> infinite, but the time to market is critical here. Users are begging  
> us to release feature articles that help them to understand and  
> implement features, and how to best use the features that the spec  
> supports. Vendors are asking for use cases. If it takes one to three  
> months to release each article (optimistically) due to the new OASIS  
> process, then articles get to the users much later, leaving them to  
> guess, or work without guidance, during that period of time before  
> we release the article.
[jm] A couple of points. All the drafts are available and public.  
That's the beauty of the oasis process, users/vendors who are  
interested and presumably following the work of the TC (i certainly  
would if i was having to make business decisions and didn't want to  
"guess"). All drafts are "released", its just a question of how you  
describe their status.
>
>> So we're effectively punishing our users and hindering adoption
>> instead of promoting adoption.
> I would say that we are encouraging TC's to carefully consider
> documents before they are adopted and made "official".
> [Gershon Joseph (gerjosep)] TCs carefully consider documents before  
> voting them to approval -- at least, on the DITA Adoption TC, we  
> have a thorough review of each document, with several iterations  
> made before we approve it. I don't see how a public review is going  
> to add to the already high quality of our adoption-related artifacts.
[jm] A CD is just a draft. Its not meant to be final. I also am seeing  
a contradiction in what you are saying.
    a. we have a high quality and have already done a thorough review  
and vetting by the time we vote on making something a draft and  
therefore there is no need to gather further comment and input because  
we've already gotten it "right".
    b. if we gather comment and input, we will delay the process  
because now we will have uncovered things that need to be changed.
which is it?

    I suggest that you simply have a public review earlier in your  
development so that you can gather comments while they still have a  
chance of "making a difference".  That's actually one of the reasons  
for the change in the Process. A CD is just a draft, its not supposed  
to be final approved work by a TC.

cheers,
   jeff
>

--
Jeff Mischkinsky			          		jeff.mischkinsky@oracle.com
Sr. Director, Oracle Fusion Middleware 				+1(650)506-1975
	and Web Services Standards           			500 Oracle Parkway, M/S 2OP9
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