Re: [office] re: I guess this is goodbye, and good luck

["Scott McGrath" <scott.mcgrath@oasis-open.org>]

Marbux,

I must respond to your comments below.  While I respect your point of view,
allow me to inject some truth to this discussion.  See my comments prefaced
by [Scott said:]

Separately, someone asked about the fee-free program.  Allow a brief
explanation here.  The process is simply to send an email to
Patrick.gannon@oasis-open.org requesting a fee-waived membership, explaining
you do not have the capacity to fund a membership, what TCs you expect to be
participating and in what capacity. (Yes, preference is given to active
participants/contributors over casual observers)  Additionally, a signed
Member Agreement is required.  

Scott...

Subject: Re: [office] re: I guess this is goodbye, and good luck

    * From: marbux <marbux@gmail.com>
    * To: "Michael Brauer" <Michael.Brauer@sun.com>
    * Date: Wed, 16 May 2007 04:16:59 -1000

On 5/16/07, Michael Brauer <Michael.Brauer@sun.com> wrote:
> Dear TC members,
>
> I would like to thank all those TC members, that are members of this TC
> on behalf of the OpenDocument Foundation, and that have to leave the TC
> today for reasons outlined by Scott McGrath, for the valuable
> contributions to the TC. I believe I'm speaking here not only on my own
> behalf, but also on the behalf of the whole TC. You were very welcome in
> the TC, and I enjoyed working with you.
>
> At the same time, I would like to express my hope that many of you may
> remain members of this TC, either by joining as individual members, or,
> if eligible, the fee waived membership program that Scott mentioned. But
> first of all, we should give the OpenDocument Foundation itself the time
> they need to prepare itself to the new situation.
>

Not cool, Mr. Brauer. It is no secret that Sun made the complaint to
OASIS Membership that triggered this mess. And what was Sun's role and
position on the OASIS rule change in regard to non-profit corporations
that allowed your sneak attack?

[Scott said:]
Frankly, this was a secret to me--because Sun did nothing to precipitate
this discussion--and in fact could not have.  Before you, or anyone else was
on the roster, I explained the rules to the OD Foundation Primary contact
when he submitted their Member Application and have been periodically asking
for compliance since.  This rule has been in place since we first created
the new reduced-fee member category for non-profits in January 2002.  All
other members are expected to always follow the "only employees are
representatives" rule that has been in place since 1993. I think it is
useful to know the reality that the non-profit category was instituted
because we wanted to give organizations like OD Foundation an opportunity to
participate as an equal to our larger members, at a small fraction of the
fee other members pay. OD Foundation gets one vote and our largest
members--paying 40 times the fee-- get one vote.  Additionally, we
recognized the need and made an exception for non-employees in non-profits
because we wanted to allow participation where the rules then disallowed.
These efforts to enable participation are especially noteworthy, IMHO, in an
organization where everyone helps share the operating cost and reaps the
benefits of the resulting infrastructure, marketing efforts and work to gain
global adoption at the level of ISO etc.  So yes, I think it is noteworthy
when the members that are in a community sharing their expenses decide they
want to pay more, so others can pay less.





I gave Sun a choice between dealing on the TC with the
interoperability issues or dealing with those issues in the press and
in Sun's prospective customers' offices. I warned that not dealing
with those issues on the TC would be regarded as a refusal to deal. I
have your answer.

Sincerely,

Marbux