Happy New Year from OASIS

Dear members,

I waited a few days to send out a message that could be a little more forward-thinking than my usual December Season's Greetings.

However, the magnitude of your 2016 achievements cannot be denied, so we must begin with a brief look back. Here are just a few of last year's highlights:

- The indefatigable DocBook broke the record for the most downloaded spec in OASIS history. Barring cat videos and Adele's latest songs, DocBook 5.1 is one of the healthiest downloads on the Internet.

- The amazing folks in the TOSCA TC continued to transform Cloud Computing by publishing the TOSCA Simple Profile in YAML.

- The KMIP TC proved something that the world thought impossible--that encryption keys can be passed from server to independent server and be recognized. Last year, the TC gave us the KMIP 1.3 as well as well as KMIP Profiles Version 1.3.

Add to that the approval of no fewer than 27 Committee Specifications including STIX 1.2.1, TAXII 1.1.1, AMQP WebSocket Binding 1.0 and Electronic Trial Master File (eTMF) Specification 1.0, and you can see how Chet Ensign and his team had their hands, arms and heads completely full.

Keep them coming. We're ready and committed to supporting your work in 2017. (More about that in a moment.)

One of the perks of developing your world-changing standards at OASIS is the potential for ISO, IEC, ITU, and ANSI approval. A decade ago, ISO and IEC's joint body JTC1 granted OASIS a special status called PAS, which we used successfully three times last year. OData 4.0 became ISO/IEC 20802-1:2016; OData JSON Format 4.0, is now ISO/IEC 20802-2:2016; MQTT 3.1.1 is now known globally as ISO/IEC 20922:2016; and XLIFF 2.0 is in process of becoming ISO/DIS 21720. Hearty congratulations to all members who contributed to these standards.

Our Borderless Cyber conference series continued in 2016 with prestigious events at the European Parliament in Brussels and at Keio University in Tokyo. The conferences highlight our cyber security work, bringing together policymakers and experts from around the world to share recent advances in technology and shifts in policy. Mark your calendars for the next Borderless Cyber, which will be held in New York, June 21-22, plus another European event in the Fall.

I regret there isn't the time or space to list all of your accomplishments. Please know that my congratulations and thanks go out to every TC and every member.

As proud as I am of the work you did in 2016, another reason I held off sending this message was because, globally, the year ended on a note of uncertainty. I don't think it's much of a leap to say that the accelerated globalization we have been experiencing is connected to the digital revolution. Clayton Christensen coined the phrase "disruptive innovation" back in 1995, but it's this decade more than any other that has shown us just how comprehensive the disruption can be. Outsourced jobs, automation in every possible context, global production webs, social media with several billion users who read less and watch less TV, artificial intelligence powering digital assistants, self-driving vehicles that threaten the livelihoods of tens of millions of cabbies and truck drivers ... And their corollaries: social and political unrest, and let's face it, an apparent inability of planners to plan.

You and I are in the business that is often seen as the cause of these changes, but our focus is on interoperability. We build bridges, we make technologies talk to each other, we make data portable, we invent protocols that allow machines and people to communicate. Interoperability creates markets and jobs. I'm proud to say this is the side of the technology equation we're on.

With that in mind, I'm exciting that one of the changes OASIS will introduce in 2017 is the option to conduct open source and open standards work under one roof. This quarter, we'll be announcing Open Projects, a new type of OASIS group that make it even easier and quicker to devise interoperable solutions to difficult technical problems. Stay tuned for more details.

We will also begin an overhaul of our technical infrastructure to deliver the power of modern collaborative tools in a community setting that maintains fairness and transparency. This is a large capital project, but (thanks to the vibrant work you bring us) we have the cash reserves to fund it. It's all part of our commitment to making OASIS the best place to work on interoperability anywhere.

Kudos to you for being dedicated to interoperability. The cliche is true--you are making the world a better place. With your help, 2017 will be an "annus mirabilis" beyond what 2016 delivered.

Please remember, my door is always open. Whatever the issue, always feel free to contact me. My staff and I are here to serve you.

Laurent

-- 
Laurent Liscia, CEO
OASIS: Advancing open standards for the information society 


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