Re: [docbook-tc] Re: [members] OASIS member review of proposed revision of TC Process

[Michael Smith <smith@xml-doc.org>]

Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com> writes:

> In the proposed[1] revision[2], I find:
> 
>   TC Visibility
> 
>   All resources of the TC and its associated subcommittees, including
>   web pages, documents, email lists and any other discussions, must be
>   located only on facilities provided by OASIS; TCs and SCs may not
>   conduct business or technical discussions, store documents, or host
>   web pages on non-OASIS servers.
> 
> By a strict interpretation of this clause, I am forbidden from
> mirroring the DocBook specifications and schemas on docbook.org. Is
> that the intent? Or is the intent merely that no TC content may appear
> solely on non-OASIS servers?

[...]

If the consortium wants to compel its members to use its infrastructure,
it should start by putting some effort into making that infrastructure
useable, beginning with scrapping the Kavi system and starting over with
something that isn't completely broken.

Concerns about the fundamental inadequacies in Kavi have been presented
to OASIS in detail:

  http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/docbook-tc/200402/msg00013.html

And it's not clear what, if anything, has been done to address those
concerns.

Along with everything else that's been pointed out, it's also worth
noting that the OASIS infrastructure provides no publicly available means
for issue-tracking (that is, no kind of ticketing system that allows
users to submit requests or questions, have those get assigned a unique
ID, and then have all later discussions related to that request stored in
a database and accessible via the ID).

And the current Send a Comment mechanism, to put it as kindly as I can,
is not something the consortium should take any pride in.[1]

There are sites all over the place that are models of how to do this
stuff the right way. The current OASIS site is a model of how not to do
it the right way. Compelling members to use it in spite of its serious
problems is not going to make it improve.

  --Mike

[1] By the way, the Send a Comment mechanism provides spammers with an
    easy means to spam TC mail lists. I just write a script that loops
    through the names of all the TC mail lists, doing:

      wget http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/comments/form.php?wg_abbrev=$LISTNAME

   ... sending post data with a bogus mail address and my spam message.