Dear OASIS members,
Over the past two and a half years, the
OASIS Board has considered changes to our
project policy documents based on feedback
from you, the members, the people who
actively do the work.
At its meeting on July 22, 2020, the Board
approved a set consolidated changes to the
Committee Operations Process, the TC
Process, the Defined Terms, and the Naming
Directives. Because these changes include
some significant changes to current
practice, the Board would like to hear
your comments.
This email starts a 30-day member comment
period. When the review is completed, our
Board will review any comments and then
propose a final set of approved documents
as well as determining their effective
date.
As a member-centric and member-run
organization, your opinions matter. The
attached ZIP file contains redlined copies
of each policy document. A brief summary
of the changes is included below. Please
take some time to review the documents and
share your thoughts with us. You can share
your comments by sending them to our
archived discussion list at
oasis-member-discuss@lists.oasis-open.org
or, if you prefer, share them directly
with me or with any OASIS board member or
staff.
Thank you in advance for your time &
feedback!
---
Summary of changes to Committee Operations
Process, TC Process, Defined Terms and
Naming Directives.
The major changes:
* We changed pronouns to be gender-neutral
throughout.
* We simplified the work product workflow.
(A separate communication will be
forthcoming describing these changes.)
Going forward, we have eliminated the
confusing and duplicative Committee
Specification Public Review Drafts and the
Candidate OASIS Standards. Your group will
now produce Committee Specification
Drafts. Public reviews will be done on the
CSDs and, after you have approved
Committee or Project Specifications, the
CS or PS will be put forward for the
60-day public review preceding the Call
for Consent as OASIS Standard. We hope
this will address long-standing confusion
over the conflicting numbering schemes as
well as eliminate unnecessary duplication
of publications.
A substantial number of the changes you'll
see are simply eliminations of references
to the eliminated artifacts.
* We modified the rules on handling
content post-approval to allow TC
Administration to work with the editors to
correct problems discovered during
publishing process. We agree that it is to
everyone's advantage to put forward the
highest quality work from our projects. We
hope you will take advantage of this to
fix those niggling glitches that we come
across during preparation of your work.
* We added a new section 1.10 to the TC
Process titled "TC Vitality." TCs will now
be asked to review and confirm (or modify)
their charter once every four years.
* We added a requirement to Committee
Process section 1.4 Chairs that every two
years, a committee must reappoint its
chairs. Sitting chairs are allowed to
stand but must be reconfirmed by committee
vote.
The minor changes:
* We clarified the requirement that
meeting minutes must be posted to the TC's
general email list. We hope this will help
eliminate the hiccups when TC Admin has to
postpone working on a support request
until the minutes are sent to the mail
list.
* We removed a discrepancy between the
definitions of Material and Non-Material
changes.
* We clarified an ambiguity about how a
Member gains voting rights during a 60 day
period if less than 2 meetings are held.
* We shortened and simplified the Leave of
Absence policy. Now, a first LoA request
is considered automatically approved.
* We clarified that changing employers
does not change a member's voting rights
or other status within a committee.
* We clarified that a TC can use the
electronic ballot tool to record votes
during a TC meeting.
* We changed references from normative /
non-normative to normative and informative
to be more in line with other SDO
practice.
Again, thank you for your time &
feedback.
--
/chet
----------------
Chet
Ensign
Chief Technical Community Steward
OASIS:
Advancing open
source &
open standards
for the
information
society
http://www.oasis-open.org
Mobile: +1
201-341-1393