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Subject: FW: [dita-adoption] RE: [dita] Re: Meeting Request: Issues About OASIS and OASIS-Approved Publications
Hi, I'm forwarding this message at David's request, although I don't necessarily agree with these views. FWIW, I think OASIS does already provide a type of Business Directory for DITA products and services, which is currently not restricted to OASIS members: http://dita.xml.org/products http://dita.xml.org/services Regards, Su-Laine Su-Laine Yeo Interaction Design Specialist JustSystems Canada, Inc. Office: 778-327-6356 syeo@justsystems.com www.justsystems.com -----Original Message----- From: David J. B. Hollis [mailto:dhollis@AandOConsultancy.ltd.uk] Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2009 1:58 PM To: DITA Adoption TC Subject: Re: [dita-adoption] RE: [dita] Re: Meeting Request: Issues About OASIS and OASIS-Approved Publications Hi, All Su-Laine, Gershon - please forward to DITA TC and any other interested parties. I'm finding this a very interesting discussion, and whilst I would not want the main focus to be distracted from Su-Laine & JustSystems' concerns, there are wider issues to consider. Some of these have been mentioned recently on the DITA Adoption TC and Focus Area SC. They also impact on OASIS' policy. One of the concerns which has been raised is how to demonstrate the vendors and tools which support DITA in some manner. Whether as an editing tool, CCMS, etc., etc. The key concerns are: 1. Avoiding simply presenting a list of resources, and saying 'go fish, you're on your own'! 2. Avoiding product reviews, which could land individuals, TCs/SCs and OASIS in deep doo-doo. A possible way out of this is an OASIS hosted Business Directory. Not just for DITA, but across all OASIS standards. Standardised entries, written by the businesses themselves. Indicating which version(s) of which OASIS standard(s) the products or services support. Brief details of product or service, contact information, web links. Essentially an OASIS version of a 'typical' B2B directory. Whilst I am all for being inclusive as much as possible, I would want to see OASIS membership as one of the criteria for inclusion in this Directory. Individual or Associate membership is 300 USD, or at least it was last year! This is hardly a barrier for a business purporting to support an OASIS standard! Frankly, if a business claims to support DITA, but is NOT an OASIS member, then that begs serious questions about their committment to DITA! Note, I'm just talking about OASIS membership, not membership of any/all TCs/SCs relevant to their product or service offerings. Another way of looking at it is, why should a business profit from an OASIS standard without supporting the body which manages that standard? One exception to this would be Open Source products, e.g. the DITA toolkit. In such events, inclusion in the Directory would be 'sponsored' by a TC. In other words, a TC would have the ability to include other entries in the Directory, as they see fit. This would be limited to the purview of the TC - the DITA TC couldn't sponsor an entry under DocBook, for instance. Besides, why would they want to? Note: TC sponsorhip, not SC. Although, of course, a SC can recommend to a TC ... I would take this further, and insist that OASIS hosted blogs are written by folk who are with OASIS member businesses, or have an Individual or Associate membership. Blogs from other parties could be included by web links. Indeed, some folk may prefer this, any way. If a business sees this as anti-competitive, well, frankly, they know what to do! Join OASIS! Simple! It doesn't cost much! Basically, I'm asking whether OASIS membership can mean more than the ability to be involved with TCs/SCs? I would be all in favour of this. David > Hi Mary and everyone, > > It's been an interesting past few weeks. Below I've tried to > summarize some *potential* issues in publishing OASIS guides to > technologies. Not all of these apply to any discussions we've had > about this particular guide, however I think it is useful to put > them on the table as hypothetical issues for purposes of formulating > and clarifying OASIS's general policies on the publishing of > technology guides under its name. > > - The public might perceive that the products associated with > subcommittee TC members are given more prominence than the products > of non-members, and consider OASIS to be less credible as a result. > - Vendors whose products have not been included in the guide might > complain that they didn't receive adequate notice about the fact > that the document was being written, and didn't have a fair chance > to have their products considered for inclusion. > - Useful information about a product might be omitted from a guide > in order to make it more palatable to the product vendor who holds a > vote on whether to accept or reject the guide. > - Claims about a particular product may turn out to be false > advertising. If false advertising appears in content published by > OASIS, who is responsible for it? > - Is it a good use of TC time and energy to try to evaluate a > technology guide written by a subcommittee? > - Can a TC provide a meaningful approval of a technology guide > written by a subcommittee if TC members do not have access to some > of technologies described in the guide? > > Again, not all of these issues have come up in the discussion about > this particular guide, but these are the types of things that I > think are useful to put on the table for purpose of formulating > OASIS policy. > > I also want to echo Kris Eberlein's sentiment appreciating the > effort that has been put into this guide so far by Help SC members. > Much of the information the Help SC has produced is useful to the > public; the question we are trying to address is if and how the > OASIS name should be associated with it. > > Best regards, > Su-Laine > > Su-Laine Yeo > Interaction Design Specialist > JustSystems Canada, Inc. > Office: 778-327-6356 > syeo@justsystems.com > www.justsystems.com > > > From: Bruce Nevin (bnevin) [mailto:bnevin@cisco.com] > Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2009 11:34 AM > To: Michael Priestley; stan@modularwriting.com > Cc: dita@lists.oasis-open.org; mary.mcrae@oasis-open.org; tony.self@hyperwrite.com > Subject: RE: [dita] Re: Meeting Request: Issues About OASIS and > OASIS-Approved Publications > > Where angels fear ... > > Since my organization is a DITA adopter rather than potential > competitor in the vendor space serving adopters, maybe I can dare to > be a bit more forthright. > > Representatives of member organizations meet on committees and > subcommittees in a cooperative spirit to establish standards, > guidelines, etc. to the mutual benefit of all. > > Might another organization enter such a committee (or view its work > and membership from the outside) and construe that cooperative > spirit as collusion among an anti-competitive cabal? > > Surely in the full breadth of OASIS such issues have arisen before > and been addressed. As one possible approach, is "mutual benefit" > defined in the broadest sense somewhere in the OASIS umbrella such > that no one can construe it in a narrow, exclusionary sense, and can > a TC or SC point to that umbrella definition should the issue arise? > > /Bruce Nevin > > From: Michael Priestley [mailto:mpriestl@ca.ibm.com] > Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2009 2:01 PM > To: stan@modularwriting.com > Cc: dita@lists.oasis-open.org; mary.mcrae@oasis-open.org; tony.self@hyperwrite.com > Subject: Re: [dita] Re: Meeting Request: Issues About OASIS and > OASIS-Approved Publications > > Hi Stan, > > To clarify, I don't think anyone suggested that an OASIS member > organization would sue another OASIS member organization. The > question was, are there any concerns about a group of OASIS member > organizations writing about the products of other companies (or > writing about some products but not others, for that matter). > > So much for not characterizing the issues in writing :-) But I > wanted to correct the characterization of the chit-chat anyway. > > Michael Priestley, Senior Technical Staff Member (STSM) > Lead IBM DITA Architect > mpriestl@ca.ibm.com > http://dita.xml.org/blog/25 > > stan@modularwriting.com > 03/18/2009 01:23 PM > > To > mary.mcrae@oasis-open.org > cc > dita@lists.oasis-open.org, tony.self@hyperwrite.com > Subject > Re: [dita] Re: Meeting Request: Issues About OASIS and OASIS- > Approved Publications > > > > > Hi Mary -- > > Spring is in the air. With chit-chat about OASIS member > organizations being open to suing other OASIS member organizations > and OASIS individual members, it may not be prudent for any > individual to characterize the issues in writing (hence the > intentional vagueness in my previous email). > > Perhaps the best course would be to have the TC next Tuesday > "approve" the minutes of our meeting yesterday, thereby providing an > appropriate starting place for defining the issues pertinent to the > meeting that we'd like to organize with you. > > Sorry ... I wish that it were as simple as summarizing the explicit > points of debate. > > Stan > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Mary McRae" > To: stan@modularwriting.com > Cc: dita@lists.oasis-open.org, tony.self@hyperwrite.com > Subject: [dita] Re: Meeting Request: Issues About OASIS and OASIS- > Approved Publications > Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2009 00:12:04 -0400 > > Hi Stan, > > It would be most helpful if you could provide the list of issues in > advance so I can make sure to have the right people involved - once > I have a better idea I can look at schedules and see what will work > for everyone. > > Regards, > > Mary > > On Tue, Mar 17, 2009 at 8:34 PM, <stan@modularwriting.com> wrote: > Hi Mary -- > > In the process of reviewing the DITA Help Technologies Guide > (attached), the DITA Technical Committee bumped into some issues -- > some potentially legal -- that are beyond the scope of our TC. We > suspect (and hope) that other TCs or working groups in OASIS have > encountered and resolved such issues. > > We are hoping that you could set up a concall next week with you and > with the following DITA people: > - su-laine.yeo@justsystems.com > - tony.self@hyperwrite.com > - Micheal Priestley > - Don Day > - Stan Doherty > > Two goals for the meeting -- > 1. Review the issues. > 2. Identify from the OASIS side of things possible precedents, > resources, and solution strategies > > Thanks, > Stan Doherty > > > > > > -- > Mary P McRae > Manager of TC Administration, OASIS > mary.mcrae@oasis-open.org > voip: 603.232.9090 > --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from this mail list, you must leave the OASIS TC that generates this mail. Follow this link to all your TCs in OASIS at: https://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/portal/my_workgroups.php
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