Re: [emergency] Re: FW: X.CAP and OASIS preferences

[Elysa Jones <ejones@warningsystems.com>]

Abbie, Could you please post exactly what is being considered for the 
TC to review as a committee?  Thanks, Elysa

At 05:15 PM 4/19/2007, James Bryce Clark wrote:

>   Lysa, I am concerned that we may not be able to give official 
> consent to this *unreviewed* proposal this fast.  Management of the 
> submission is in the consortium management's hands, not just the 
> TC, in order to assure that we follow our rules, and maintain 
> OASIS' interests in its collaborations with other SDOs.
>   Whatever the proposal's merit, there's a general need to 
> maintain  parallel uniformity across organizations.  OASIS 
> submissions to ISO and ITU invariably have included the following 
> conditions, so that cross-compatibility is not broken:
>   1.  Adopted OASIS Standards are submitted for approval "as is", 
> that is, to be voted up or down without change.
>   2.  Comments and proposals for change from the approving 
> organization and most welcome, but must be brought back to the 
> originating OASIS for discussion.
>   3.  Participating OASIS TCs commit to review, consider and 
> resolve the proposals for change.
>   4.  Any mutually agreed changes must be re-approved as errata or 
> OASIS Standards (generally) before resubmission to the approving organization.
>   5.  Generally there is an arranged method for resolving any 
> proposed variances.
>
>   While the new proposed schema from ITU may be informally 
> acceptable to the TC, at first glance, step 4 above normally would 
> require that the TC official approve additions or changes either as 
> official errata (requiring 15 day public review, under section 3.5 
> of the TC Process), a Committee Specification (requiring 60 day 
> public review etc) or an OASIS Standard.  That would assure, among 
> other things, that the TC and its broader user constituencies had 
> some minimal opportunity to *review* the proposed AS1 representation.
>
>   If we do otherwise, and welcome sudden changes to our submissions 
> outside of our arranged process, it both bends our own rules, and 
> encourages our collaborating organizations to fork the standards we submit.
>   Adopting a "second alternative" side-by-side standard from ITU, 
> as they've most recently suggested, probably is a good faith 
> attempt to handle the same material in a more harmless manner. 
> However, it still fundamentally acts like a forking of the work.  I 
> can imagine many other "supplements" proposed at the last minute 
> that might detract significantly from the OASIS work ... and as I 
> understand that TC has not really even reviewed this one.  Also, 
> significantly, I do not know if the AS1 submission is *available* 
> to OASIS to be contributed to *us* on the TC's applicable 
> terms.  That would be an essential element to any future coordination.
>   Abbie, do you really think it would be safe to do otherwise?  If 
> there is a second, shadow standard, described as related to CAP by 
> ITU, but not by OASIS (whatever its merit), would this not confuse users?
>
>   Like Art, who wrote to the TC list several days ago about this, I 
> am pleased that the ITU community wants to donate AS1 "code" to the 
> project.  We encourage the TC to let ITU know that it welcomes this 
> development.  But this proposal should be handled within the 
> context of he review and approval steps we use to ensure 
> transparency and quality assurance.
>   It's my current feeling that we should communicate with SG17, and 
> our representatives there, and ask that they not enact an 
> unreviewed document that is stated to be related to our submission 
> until our TC has a chance properly to process it.  However, I 
> understand that we want to cooperative as best as possible with ITU 
> and its submitters, and would appreciate your feedback on these views.
>
>   Kind regards  JBC
>
>~ James Bryce Clark
>~ Director of Standards Development, OASIS
>~ jamie.clark@oasis-open.org
>