Hi TC chairs,
This is the first of two messages asking for your feedback on some proposed changes we are making to the formatting of specification documents (this message) and an optional change to the spec publication workflow. Please share these your editors or other interested TC members as you see fit.
Any and all feedback is welcome. These are Google Docs and anyone with the link can comment. Will this make your work easier for users? Does this make the workflow easier for you all to follow? You name it; we'd like your feedback before we decide whether or not this makes sense.
- Committee Specification Draft
https://docs.google.com/document/d/13jX0pGj47Odg7-f8qsI0srXJzc_qeNkstKllDOWtfk8/editThis is the proposed new template for OASIS specifications and CNs. This would start at the Working Draft phase so that editors and TCs would work with a consistent look and feel throughout the progression from working draft all the way to OASIS Standards. Here are the key changes we're testing out:
- We moved metadata that was in the body content (the redundant statement of the IPR mode, the key word text) to the cover page to reduce the distance between page 1 of your specification and content your users will want to read.
- We moved References to an appendix and relabelled 'Non-Normative' to 'Informative' to help make the distinction between the two more clear.
- A couple of other thoughts not yet reflected here but being considered:
 - Expand the use Declared XML namespaces to cover any types of declarations - for example, proposed IANA media-types
 - Including an option Privacy Considerations appendix after Security Considerations
- Public Review Cover Page Draft
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aMdKEhuTuD83D7bfbzu6BvIAMXmcs3r-mdsDdHPevsU/editThis is a proposed new approach to putting out public reviews.
The goal here is to eliminate the confusion around Committee Spec Drafts and Committee Spec Public Review Drafts. Why is one document labelled CSD02 and the next labelled CSD03/PRD01? Isn't the TC just sending a Committee Specification Draft out for a public review?
Our idea here is to kick off public reviews with a single cover page document that provides the information about the review and points to the CSD. If you all decide that CSD03 is ready to go out, we're not going to republish it as CSD04/PRD01. We'll just prepare this PRD01 cover page, add it to the directory where your CSD03 is published, and send out the notification.
So, going forward, the workflow the TC will see will be your Committee Spec Drafts moving sequentially forward until you approve your Committee Specification.
- Lastly, here is the proposed instructions an editor can follow to advance work in this template through the process.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DR_H52Ta6kTOtxANPk3RCUmyA3tDaF4hTuUyxpQ15Y8/editAn additional benefit we think this offers is that your editors can work on and the TC can ultimately vote to approve the actual artifacts that TC Administration will publish. It will no longer be the case that your approve something that we then do more work on before publishing. What you approve is what we publish, period.
My thanks to OASIS Board Member Bret Jordan for the thought and effort he has put into improving our workflow. And thanks in advance for any and all feedback you want to share. As always, we want make OASIS work better for you.Â
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/chetÂ
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Chet Ensign
Chief Technical Community StewardOASIS: Advancing open source & open standards for the information society
http://www.oasis-open.org
Mobile: +1 201-341-1393Â