7 December 06 draft minutes

[Dave Marvit <dave.marvit@us.fujitsu.com>]

Folks,

Thanks to everyone for their time and patience in the cal today.  As
promised here are the (draft) minutes. Also as promised, the conclusions
are presented at the beginning of these notes.

Any comments or changes, please feel free to pass them my way.

Very best,

_Dave

----------
DM: No later that Tuesday Dec. 12th US time Dr. Leff will circulate a
draft to the entire TC of everything including the language reference.
No later than Dec. 14th US Time the TC will provide feedback to Dr.Leff.

Dr. Leff back to the TC on or before Dec. 18th

Dec. 21st we will have a call at the usual time, and a vote.

DG will be the 'special IT guy' for Dr. Leff supporting getting him
online while he is in New York. They will communicate logistics for this
matter out of band.
-------------
eContracts Conference call
7 December 2006

Peter, Zoran, Dr. Leff, Dan G, Dave
Mr. Sasagawa is listening in.

DG:  I want to make a statement of where I believes we are with the TC
at this point.  We have a draft spec that Dr. Leff generated which met
with a positive reaction.  We received valuable excellent structured
feedback from Peter, Zoran, and others.  Now we are trying to see what
portions of that feedback should be incorporated into the spec so that
we can get it out for a first draft and a vote.  Then we will be able to
get it back and at that time we rev. it and release it as our 1.0.

At that point we can disband the TC, start a new one, or rejuvenate the TC.

That's my understanding overall of where we are.  Comments?

Dr. Leff:  I agree.  I think that any conversations about the future of
the TC should be in a different call because of my dual roles in the
context of this call as a contractor to the TC and also a member of it.

I am in the process of implementing all of the suggestions.  I have no
problem or issue with any of them. The only reason all of the revisions
are not in is simply because I haven't gotten to them yet.

(some discussion about what was sent and received -- email problems
getting the document to Peter)

Since late last night I am in the process of revising the language
reference manual.  It will take me a while to merge those changes in.  I
don't see getting that done as a problem.

DG:  Jumping back, are we where I said we are?  Comments from folks?

Zoran:  Well... I don't know what makes sense not having seen Dr. Leff's
version.It is difficult for me to say what the process should be going
forward.

DG: That's reasonable. Dave?

DM:  I agree with what Dan said, with the understanding that what Dr.
Leff produces is complete or near complete.  Even if it is near complete
that'd be OK.  I expect it will be near complete.

Peter: It is hard to say much without seeing the document.  We hope that
it will be near complete.  It certainly won't be complete.

Dr. Leff:  I am just putting in Peter's changes.  It is not like I am
doing any deep work.  I am basically acting like a typist at this point.
So, in my opinion, you can have a substantive discussion.

Zoran:  And please tell me, how are you dealing with my comments? And
when do you think we can get the next rev?

Dr. Leff: The technical corrections that you caught I have
incorporated.  The broader issues that you made are being mediated
through Peter.

Peter:  Yes, and we did pick up Zoran's comments on metadata and fold it
in.  But the current format of the document isn't something that people
can read. It is not reasonable to expect people to be able to read my
last draft. [It is all in XML and requires an XML editor to read. -dm]

Dan:  Yes, and I also think we need to see something that is more
together and also to be able to see how Zoran's comments are
incorporated.  And, as Zoran asked, when should we expect to get it?

Dr. Leff:  I'm not going to promise anything.  Let me get it done and
pass it to Mr. Meyer.  If he is satisfied then I will put it in the
document collection.  I don't want to have another meeting and have
people be disappointed because the document is not ready.

Peter:  I claim no special position.  I think the penultimate draft
should go to everyone.

Dan:  I agree with that. Earlier on it made sense to run things through
Peter, but I think that at this point it should go to everyone.

Dr Leff:  I think that we all agree.

DG: So when did the contract go into effect and when was Dr. Leff
supposed to deliver in order to get his bonus? There was a hiccup
between organizations due to some wording in the contract and I know
that delayed things.

Dr. Leff:  There was a date on the contract... I will find it in my files...

Zoran:  Would it be possible to talk about this on another conference
call...

Dr. Leff: September 26th the contract went back to the university.  I'd
guess that about Sep 30 the contract went back from the university to
OASIS.  From that point of view we completed the draft within 37 days. I
believe that we made that.

DG: Substantially complete was defined as something we could vote on.

Peter:  I don't know if that was part of the definition. But I also
don't know if we need to be so fussy about it.

DG: Well, Dr. Leff was not a volunteer in this case. He is getting paid
for the work... So, if we had an agreement to have a delivery by a
certain date...

Dr. Leff: I'd rather not have this discussion in the greater TC
meeting.  People are expecting to have a discussion about content...

DG: That's fine, but we are at a decision point.  We should set a date
by the end of the meeting...

Peter: My personal view is that if we can wrap this up very quickly from
now then we would be in a position to accept what was delivered.

Dr. Leff: I am hoping to get this to you in a matter of days. A lot of
this discussion is simply not appropriate.  I'm just incorporating the
latest round of changes.

DG: The contract was dated 11/1.  In any case, what is a date when we
can expect this to be done?

Dr. Leff: In my experience it is always difficult to make predictions in
software engineering.  I am hoping to get this done and out by Tuesday.
There are some issues I am hoping to address but... Maybe by the end of
this weekend...

I am not saying that we won't need to call in the lawyers or call the
university and say we are in breach. But we aren't at that point yet.

DG: As a mater of management I am obliged to set a date to which you
will be responsible to deliver by.

Dr. Leff:  I see no reason why I can't get a lot of this done..
excepting the style sheet issue... but I really hope to get everything
done by the 17th.

Dan:  We have all been contractors and had to make commitments and not
get paid if we don't honor those commitments.

Dr. Leff: I'm reluctant to commit to a date.

Dan:  How about the date that you already set and agreed to in the contract?

Dr. Leff: As far as I am concerned I met it.

DG: When you give us something that the TC can vote on, that is success.

Peter:  But that wasn't the standard in the contract.  By my memory that
wasn't it.  It was something that the TC could circulate.  But I'd
rather not get hung up on that.

Dr. Leff:  The bottom line is that if it isn't voted on I don't get paid.

DG: This is about clarification. And we are going to get something we
can vote on by Dec 17th, right....?

Dr. Leff:  The only issue is that style sheet.  That may be a real
technical sticking point.  Incorporating the changes I don't see being
an issue.

Peter:  I think that the style sheet thing is a pain, but you can
circulate the document without a table of contents.  And you can talk to
OASIS and see if they have a different style sheet that addresses the
problem.  They should.

As for the date, if you can get it to us by Tuesday that would be great.
Then we could look it over and check it for errors and inconsistencies.
If it is full of errors people will dismiss it.

(Peter discusses a possible change after the next draft)

Dr. Leff: Specification change and specification creep are major
problems in the software engineering field.  I followed the outline to
the letter...

Peter: I don't think we changed any of the requirements. The document
lacked... It wasn't what I was expecting.  We shouldn't be talking about
changing or having changed the requirements.  We need to discuss getting
a document written by one reflecting the views of the many.

If we can get something Tuesday then we can get in any final revs and
make changes by the end of the week or early the following.

Zoran:  I don't think 2 days is enough.  I'd like to look at the changes
and see how they are incorporated.  I think we should be able to have
enough time to do a quality review.

Peter:  If you look at the process we might expect the next version from
Dr. Leff, then there will be changes, then time for Dr. Leff to
incorporate them. At that point we have something that can be sent
around, reviewed, and voted on.

DG: I feel like we have been giving Dr. Leff substantial changes rather
late in the process. So I'd like to suggest that we propose a freeze on
changes so Dr. Leff can meet his deadline.

Peter: It could be argued that he has met his deadline.  All we need to
worry about now is to finish it off.

DG: I agree.  But I think that we should limit the changes so that we
can reach closure.

Peter: I wasn't happy with, in fact I was appalled by what was
submitted. It needed major surgery.  That said, it took us a long way
from where we would be otherwise.

Dan:  We need a date by which we don't give him any more help.
Otherwise he won't be able to finish.

Peter:  That's our suggestion.  Dr. Leff gets us something by Tuesday.
We get a week to submit changes, and hopefully they are not substantial,
and that's it.  Absolutely last call.

Zoran: And we still don't have a document about which we can talk.

Peter: Yes

Dan: So, by way of laying to rest what the expectations are:  What the
contract is seeking ..."consultant will prepare the specification so
that the TC can vote on it as a draft specification. " After this we
will be able to incorporate more changes.

I would propose that we vote on the document on Dec 17th and then we
evaluate it at the same time as the world does.

Dr. Leff: A major problem in the software engineering field is that
people push too fast and the QA process is compromised.  Let's not short
change it to get it out a couple weeks faster.

I would like to pass it to Peter faster. I'll try to get it to him by
Tuesday if not sooner. Let me get working to get that out as soon as
possible.

DG: That sounds good.  I want to get some dates.

Dave:  Nobody wants to have the discussion about weather Dr. Leff has
honored his contractual commitment or not. We don't need to have it now,
and we certainly don't want to go down a path that will lead to that
discussion later. So, let's work out a set of dates that will allow us
to wrap this up as soon as possible.

Zoran: I fully concur with what Dave said. We should not let something
go out without making sure that it meets our standards.

Peter: I agree.  But, at the end of the week the changes have to be
incorporated. That will delay thing s a bit.

DG: Do you think you can limit the changes?

Peter: Yes.  I don't want to, or expect to make any substantive changes.
The only issue is how much context stuff we put at the beginning. By
that doesn't really require writing much content.  It just requires
reorganization of what is already there.

DG: So that sounds good. I want to thank Dr. Leff and his team.  It is
hard work and you and your team deserve recognition and appreciation for it.

Dr. Leff:  I want to finish soon for a variety of reasons. I really want
to get the changes into the language reference, format it, and get it to
Dr. Meyer.

DG: I hear that you do [want to get it done] and are committing to it.
So Tuesday Dec. 12th... Dec 19th

[discussion about deadlines and dates. Proposing incorporating all of
the changes. Discussing the value of working on the content rather than
worrying about the table of contents.]

DM: No later that Tuesday Dec. 12th US time Dr. Leff will circulate a
draft to the entire TC of everything including the language reference.
No later than Dec. 14th US Time the TC will provide feedback to Dr.Leff.

Dr. Leff back to the TC on or before Dec. 18th

Dec. 21st we will have a call at the usual time, and a vote.

DG will be the 'special IT guy' for Dr. Leff supporting getting him
online while he is in New York. They will communicate logistics for this
matter out of band.

Meeting adjourned.