Approach to Disposition of Comments and Defect Reports

["Dennis E. Hamilton" <dennis.hamilton@acm.org>]

This is to summarize the discussion on the 2008-12-01 call and the proposed procedure for moving forward.

BRINGING LIST OF PUBLIC COMMENTS CURRENT

1. The current document (version #11) reflect all public comments received through July, 2008.
   http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/document.php?document_id=30131
   All comments from Makoto Murata that have also appeared on SC34 defect reports (first or second) have been cross-referenced to those reports.

2. Rob Weir is going to expand the document to include all comments received to date (probably not counting those that just came in over the weekend from Murata-san.  We must decide what to do about that (being comments on the Errata 01 cd03, not the specification).

3. When Rob has completed the list, Dennis is going to do three things with that version:

   3.1 Cross-check additional comments from Murata-san against the latest SC34 defect report.

   3.2 Modify the document with additional columns so that it can be filtered to produce disposition reports for transmission to JTC1/SC34 and to others.  It should also be possible to filter by disposition and by the Errata document (or specification) in which the comment has been acted upon if it is a defect accepted for correction.

   3.3 Add any SC34 defect-report items that are not already reflected in the public comments to the public-comment list so that there is a single point of reference for all comments that require disposition.

   3.4 Categorization will use the JTC1 categories for items.

PROVIDING DISPOSITION INFORMATION AND ERRATA

4. IMPORTANT: Our only knowledge of the SC34 defect reports is second-hand via access to the reports on the SC34 site and being told about them by people who go to JTC1 and SC34 meetings.  We have no formal delivery of these items from OASIS to the ODF-TC so that we may work on them in some formalized, official capacity.  We should fix this.  It would also allow OASIS to acknowledge to JTC1 that this has been done and the next step will be our disposition response.  (One thing that transmittal to the ODF TC could carry is specification of an agreed deadline for an initial disposition assessment and the ODF TC could respond with its commitment to a response date.)

5. Disposition responses will indicate our initial categorization and screening, so that the contributors can tell what action if any is to be taken, and when they might see a result.  

6. Errata documents will be produced as required and as permitted under the OASIS TC Procedures.  The Errata documents will indicate sources of the items and also, if we provided roll-ups in the Errata documents, which version of the errata document the item originated in (unless modified subsequently).  This allows reviewers and users of Errata documents to have single documents for a version of the OASIS ODF Standard and be able to determine which items are new or changed since the previously-approved Errata document.

7. A working draft Errata document will be kept in our document store for ongoing review by submitters and others who want to see what the provisional resolution of items via Errata is proposed to be.

ENSURING TREATMENT OF DEFECTS IN FUTURE VERSIONS

8. The Public comment list and all errata items must be screened with regard to their treatment, if any, in later versions of the OASIS Standard for ODF.  It is particularly important that those defects that were not resolved in ODF 1.1 be resolved in ODF 1.2 as much as we are able to do so.  We should give priority to that determination once we have the complete lists at (3).

QUESTIONS

9. We can "prune" the list of public comments, splitting out those for which additional action is not required.  These can go into an archive version of the document.  This will keep the list manageable and easier to review.  Is that acceptable in the future when we have a large number of resolved comments?

10. We do need to decide whether we will keep updating a single errata document for a given OASIS Standard or will we produce supplements to previous ones.  My recommendation is to keep complete roll-ups of errata items, so that a next Errata (i.e., for 1.0) would replace the previous Errata.

11. We don't have any errata document for 1.1 and we also don't know what defects that apply to 1.0 and 1.1 will turn up in the finalization of ODF 1.2.  We need a way to capture those items well enough so they are not lost and that we can determine whether to incorporate in 1.0 and potential 1.1 errata in the future.  Is it correct that we are not committed to further formal errata for either 1.0 and 1.1, but we want to be in a position to issue them as we might decide later?

12. I am also assuming that we will not obsolete 1.0 and 1.1 any time in the near future and maintenance remains a consideration, especially for 1.0 with its ISO/IEC IS 26300:2006 counterpart.  Is that a fair assessment at this point?

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I am sure that more questions and aspects will come up.  Feedback will be very helpful.
 

 - Dennis

Dennis E. Hamilton
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