RE: [odf-adoption] Re: OASIS Support of non-US particpants was: RE: [odf-adoption] Re: [odf-camp] Re: ODF Interoperability Camp Follow-up

["Carol Geyer" <carol.geyer@oasis-open.org>]

Thomas,
I never meant to imply that your point would not be addressed outside the phone
call. When I suggested that the TC call would be the best place to resolve this
issue, I was completely unaware that you were unable to participate in those
calls.  

Carol
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Thomas Zander [mailto:zander@kde.org] 
Sent: Friday, November 02, 2007 2:16 PM
To: odf-adoption@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: [odf-adoption] Re: OASIS Support of non-US particpants was: RE:
[odf-adoption] Re: [odf-camp] Re: ODF Interoperability Camp Follow-up

On Friday 02 November 2007 17:34:44 Scott McGrath wrote:
> Thomas,
>
> Your comments suggest that you may not be aware of a service that OASIS
> offers for supporting non-US based callers.  

Thats right, I never was told about this.  I only called into the ODF-TC once 
and that cost me ? 25,-
Not something I want to repeat again.

While I appreciate that suggestion, I think it also misses the point. Allow me 
to explain;

Some time ago I heard a long-time standards guy say that in order to make your 
voice heard, the standard organization asks that you put in money and time. 
This makes it look more fair, I guess.
I won't argue how good or bad that works for technical committees.
What is relevant is how that works for something like the 'odf-adoption' 
workgroup. Or the spinoff for odf-interoperability-conferences.
I spent *considerable* personal resources on getting KOffice better, which is 
appreciated by a years free membership on OASIS.
All this still means I get to spent an hour on the phone at a time that is 
always inconvenient just to make sure things I believe in are actually 
listened to.

I was honestly flabbergasted when Carol stated that my point would not be 
addressed outside of the phone call. Maybe this is something very natural to 
all you guys, but while phone certainly has its advantages (it allows people 
who can't read/write technical text to participate), but its nowhere near the 
problem solver that email / IM is. For starters, it interrupts my other 
(real) work.

So, similar to what I said before to Carol; your solution is just a solution 
for a problem OASIS created themselves by giving members that phone in extra 
rights.
I, again, don't want to change the world by saying it should stop doing that. 
But I, again, want to make very clear that this way of working is highly 
unconventional for making all ODF implementations work better together.

Bottom line; it blocks open source people from contributing.
-- 
Thomas Zander