Proposed Charter for OASIS Identity in the Clouds TC

[Patrick Durusau <patrick@durusau.net>]

Greetings!

The original charter for this TC appears at: 
http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/oasis-charter-discuss/201001/msg00000.html 
and my original comments: 
http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/oasis-charter-discuss/201001/msg00003.html.

To its credit, the charter now has support from both IBM and Microsoft, 
so we are only missing Amazon, Google and Oracle, to name a few of the 
other major players in *cloud* computing.

Remaining/recurrent issues include (I haven't tried to be exhaustive):

1) OASIS TC proposals should not invent confusing terminology in any 
standards area. For example, there isn't any "Identity in the Clouds" 
technical effort anywhere in known space. There are standards being 
developed for *cloud* computing and questions of identity in the *cloud.*

The name of this TC and its charter are noise pollution in an important 
area of computing.

2) OASIS TC proposals should propose the development of *standards* to 
address known issues. It is inappropriate to propose a charter with no 
known purpose or target for its effort, other than to go "gap hunting" 
through other standards efforts. From the description in the charter, it 
bears a strong resemblance to a "snipe hunt." (On which see: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snipe_hunt)

3) An OASIS TC isn't necessary to find and communicate "gaps" noticed in 
Identity Management protocols. Email to the authors of those protocols 
would suffice.

4) Unless other standards efforts have designated the proposed TC as the 
arbiter of terms and their definitions, the goal to "harmonize 
definitions/terminologies/vocabulary of Identity in the context of Cloud 
Computing" seems unlikely to be successful. Particularly since this 
effort starts with fanciful invention of terms in the area.

Let's cut to the chase. This is a TC to go hunting for a standard or 
perhaps not, to write.

Why not develop one or more use cases that illustrate a gap in existing 
standards, create or have a proposal to create a standard or profile to 
address that gap and then form a TC?

What is so hard about that?

It would have a defined scope, a meaningful description of a projected 
work product, a description that could entice others into joining the 
work, a place to fit into the larger panoply of standards in the area, 
in short all the things one expects of a standards TC and its work product.

As I said in my original comments, this is an *important* area of 
computing. It is an area where OASIS should be encouraging the formation 
of *useful* TCs to address known issues. Forming TCs to go "gap hunting" 
in existing or new areas of computing technology does not reflect well 
on OASIS and by extension its members.

Let's not embarrass ourselves by forming a TC that has no clear purpose 
or goal.

Hope everyone is at the start of a great week!

Patrick

PS: I am a member of the OASIS Technical Advisory Board (TAB) but this 
posting does not reflect any official view of the TAB or OASIS.

-- 
Patrick Durusau
patrick@durusau.net
Chair, V1 - US TAG to JTC 1/SC 34
Convener, JTC 1/SC 34/WG 3 (Topic Maps)
Editor, OpenDocument Format TC (OASIS), Project Editor ISO/IEC 26300
Co-Editor, ISO/IEC 13250-1, 13250-5 (Topic Maps)