Minutes from TC meeting on 27 Feb 2012

[Gershon Joseph <gerjosep@cisco.com>]

Hi all,

Attached please find my summary of our meeting with Chet.

Our next TC meeting is on 12 March 2012 at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time.

Thanks everyone for your active participation at our special meeting. Thanks again to Chet for his support in trying to help us function effectively as an adoption committee.

Gershon

Meeting Minutes: DITA Adoption TC meeting,  Monday, 27 February 2012, 11:00am to 12:00pm ET

Chair and Scribe: Gershon Joseph

1. Roll call
> Quorum was achieved.
> We had 100% quorum! We also had a record 13 attendees on the call.

> Gershon asked Rodolfo if he is able to take on our secretary role again.
> Rodolfo will let us know of his decision next meeting.

* Regrets: None

2. Accept minutes from previous business meeting (30 January 2012: Gershon)
 * http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/dita-adoption/email/archives/201202/msg00001.html
> Minutes accepted by acclamation

3. Next meeting: Monday, 12 March 2012, 11:00am to 12:00pm ET
> (We skipped this item, but this is our next scheduled TC meeting.)

4. SPECIAL BUSINESS: Emergency meeting with Chet Ensign (OASIS TC Admin) to discuss our issues 
   with the OASIS process and to determine whether this TC should continue or close its business
> On behalf of the TC, Gershon thanked Chet for taking time to join our meeting and listen to 
> our issues and concerns that we feel are hindering our ability to perform as an adoption TC.

 * Long time to deliver first release of article to community
 * Minor changes to published articles vs. the time and hassle to publish them
> Chet understands the issues here -- time to market is critical for information that describes
> how to use new features in a spec release, as well as best practices related to the new
> spec release. Often these are not fully understood until the spec is released, or very close to
> release. Also, releasing "draft" committee notes does not work for our consumers, who ignore 
> documents released as "draft" and they will wait for a final document before taking it seriously.
> Chet will discuss this further with OASIS staff and board.

 * Contributors (authors) not recognized for their contribution
> This was what we were told by the previous TC admin, but Chet agrees it's absurd and that 
> authors should be allowed to be listed as such on documents released by the TC.
RESOLVED: Moving forward, we can list the authors as such on our articles and other work products.

 * New OASIS fee structure prohibits wide community representation on the TC
> Gershon stated that this is known to the OASIS staff and he didn't want to spend time discussing
> this issue. The issue is that we lost TC members when the fee structure changed and we are
> aware of several folks who would join our TC if the membership fee for their organization was not
> prohibitive (i.e., 1-5 employees interested in DITA, in an organization that has 50-500 employees
> where the other employees have no desire (or even no need) to join OASIS. This issue is 
> particularly prevalent in regions outside of North America.

 * No longer permitted to present webinars
> This was also an instruction from the previous TC admin. Chet agreed with us that this is counter-
> productive for an adoption committee and will take this up with the OASIS staff and board.
> Gershon reminded the TC that the issues were 1) the content of the slides was considered
> uncontrollable and could be changed after OASIS approval as a committee note and 2) the speaker(s)
> may say things that were not in the "approved" committee note slide deck. Both issues are around
> concern for IP disclosure, but it's not clear to us what the issue is because this is an adoption
> TC and any webinar or other presentation would be about how to use, why they should use, a 
> particular spec and the IP is in the formal normative specification documents, not in any 
> presentation.

 * Cannot present webinars or any other OASIS deliverable in partnership with another TC
> This was related to the previous bullet item, but the issue here was concern around IP when
> more than one TC is involved. Again, there should not be anything that is not protected
> in the formal specs of one or more of the TCs participating in the joint webinar.

 * Most of this TC's original charter is meaningless under the current TC process
> Gershon shared his copy of the charter with highlights on the items he felt are not 
> relevant or possible under the current TC process.

> The TC managed to discuss all our issues during the meeting, and we look forward to 
> Chet's responses on the items he said he'd check with the staff and/or board.
> Again, the TC would like to thank Chet for joining us and also express our appreciation
> for his support and dedication.

*** meeting adjourned ***