Re: [dita] Re: Meeting Request: Issues About OASIS and OASIS-Approved Pu

Subject: Re: [dita] Re: Meeting Request: Issues About OASIS and OASIS-Approved Publications

On Thu, Mar 19, 2009 at 8:56 AM, Chuck Allen <chucka@hrinterop.org> wrote:

Tony,

I don't think you have a "consensus" as the term is commonly used in
standards development. Perhaps OASIS has an official definition under
its methodology, but generally speaking it is used in standards
development to mean general agreement characterized by the absence of
sustained opposition to substantial issues by committee participants.
Consensus doesn't require unanimity, but does require the absence of
sustained opposition -- which apparently you don't have.

I absolutely believe that the practical information in the guide is
something that should be published. I do question the wisdom of trying
to represent something with so much vendor-specific and time-sensitive
content as a consensus document of a standards sub-committee. If the
sub-committee chartered the work to begin with and gave everyone a
chance to play, but you are in a situation where you can't represent
the material as representing a "consensus" of the committee, what
would be so bad about publishing the doc with strict attribution to
those that wrote it?

Chuck Allen

On Thu, Mar 19, 2009 at 5:08 AM, Tony Self <tself@hyperwrite.com> wrote:
> Hi everyone
>
> I just want to pick up on Chuck's thoughts. It's not true to say that the
> Guide doesn't represent the consensus of the subcommittee. The subcommittee
> have collectively worked on this document, and collectively agreed to submit
> it to the TC. There hasn't even been a murmur of discontent with the Guide
> at any subcommittee meeting, or on the mailing list. I don't think it should
> be characterised as a collection of individual views.
>
> Tony Self
> Chair, DITA Help Subcommittee
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chuck Allen [mailto:chucka@hrinterop.org]
> Sent: Thursday, 19 March 2009 12:12 PM
> To: Su-Laine Yeo; Bruce Nevin (bnevin); Michael Priestley;
> stan@modularwriting.com; mary.mcrae@oasis-open.org;
> dita@lists.oasis-open.org; tony.self@hyperwrite.com;
> dita-adoption@lists.oasis-open.org
> Subject: Re: [dita] Re: Meeting Request: Issues About OASIS and
> OASIS-Approved Publications
>
> One would think there is a balance of interests that can be found.
>
> I don't think this has to be complicated. What if you were to take the
> subcommittee's name off of the cover, list the names of the actual
> contributors, and put in the disclaimer that the work represents the
> research and judgment of the contributors and that it does not
> necessarily represent a consensus of the subcommittee? Isn't this the
> truth? Assuming the exercise of preparing this content was approved by
> the subcommittee to begin with and everyone had the opportunity to
> participate in the process, I would hope that this would strike the
> right balance.
>
> Based on the type of document and considering that the content by its
> very nature isn't particularly stable, I tend to agree that it
> shouldn't have been put forward for TC approval. This is not to say
> that the doc isn't useful or that OASIS committee and subcommittee
> participants shouldn't have the means to communicate practical
> information related to standards adoption and implementation.
>
> I confess to ignorance and laziness in not knowing or bothering to
> look up what OASIS's policies are, but it seems to me that many
> Consortia have policies under which practical information related to a
> standard (e.g., non-consensus "guidance" documents, adopter case
> studies, notes, and the like) can be published providing there is a
> bit of due process, equal opportunity to participate, and the proper
> disclaimer as to the fact that the particular document isn't normative
> and doesn't represent a consensus of the particular group.
>
> Chuck Allen
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 3:44 PM, Su-Laine Yeo
> <su-laine.yeo@justsystems.com> wrote:
>> 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
>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Chuck Allen,
> Founder, HR-XML, HRInterop.org
> +1 919 247 6881
> -----------------------------------------------
> http://www.hrinterop.org
> A laser focus on HR services Interoperability
> -----------------------------------------------
>
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