Exciting OASIS Open Member Updates

I realize itâs been a while since my first welcome message, so I wanted to write to you all again to give an update on progress (and some changes) that are coming before the end of 2020, and as we begin the new year. These aren't the only things going on, as OASIS Open staff (and the Board) has been very busy, but here are the highlights we wanted you to know about:

1) Updated OASIS Bylaws

As part of our shift to successfully bridging the gap between open standards and open source, as well as to make our bylaws more modern, we undertook an extensive review of the current bylaws, engaged external counsel to give us sound advice, and have circulated the proposed draft of the new bylaws to all members.

We sincerely thank all of you who took the time to provide comments and feedback to that draft - it was heartening to see so many members help us adjust and craft bylaws that reflect the values that OASIS brings to the table for members and technology consumers alike. The OASIS Board Governance Advisory Committee has updated the Bylaws draft based on member comments and additional review, weâve responded to the commenters, and assuming approval by the full Board on 10 November, weâll send the updated Bylaws to all voting members for approval.

OASIS has always had a fantastic reputation with technology innovaters, buyers and highly-regulated arenas like government, etc. As we transition to including Open Projects as part of our portfolio, we need to continue to invest in outreach strategies to reach new open source and open standards audiences to come work together with us on new specifications or open code.

We're tremendously excited about the website and branding refresh, as we think it takes all of the great values OASIS has always espoused (fairness, transparency, openness and collaboration) and showcases them in a modern look and feel, with a much-improved user experience (especially around finding out how to join a project, start a project, or just see what OASIS members are doing in different technology domains).

In order to take advantage of numerous opportunities in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) space in Europe (especially with our close connection to the European Commission through Dr. Carol Cosgrove-Sacks), we are forming an OASIS Open EU Foundation (legally called a Stichting) in The Netherlands. This foundation will be non-profit, wholly independent from OASIS Open, but with strong controlling interest through Board seats occupied by OASIS Board members Gershon Janssen, Martin Chapman, and myself. Weâll also be recruiting and appointing outstanding EU nationals to fill additional board seats to help us with networking and outreach in the EU standards and technology domain.

We believe starting the Stichting not only gives us a great avenue to accept EU-funded projects, but also gives us a greater global reach/presence to help advance the cause of open standards and open source in all of Europe.

4) OASIS Unification and Improvement

As part of our strategic planning process, we've identified three main areas where weâll need to make adjustments going forward to better serve you, our members, as well as to attract new collaborators to our projects. These three areas are:

- Members are Members (Bringing our Open Project Sponsors in as OASIS members)
- Projects are Projects (Unifying and Streamlining TC and OP efforts into a cohesive product offering)
- Repository-based Work/Tools (Streamlining tools to support specifications and coding within a common tooling environment)

We have various efforts underway to do this, and will share more information about this in the coming months. Any thoughts or suggestions you might have would be welcome.

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