RE: [office] The Phantom Proposals

[Doug Mahugh <Doug.Mahugh@microsoft.com>]

Rob, I appreciate your eagerness to clarify the public record and get the facts correct.

Can you please provide a link to whatever misrepresentation you are trying to correct?

Thanks,
Doug

-----Original Message-----
From: robert_weir@us.ibm.com [mailto:robert_weir@us.ibm.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, May 19, 2009 1:43 PM
To: Carol Geyer; Mary McRae
Cc: office@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: [office] The Phantom Proposals

Hi Carol and Mary (and FYI, for the ODF TC members, who all already know 
this),

I'm starting to here a claim that the ODF TC rejected "15 proposals" made 
by Microsoft to improve interoperability.  "IBM and Sun voted them down" 
is how I hear it phrased.  Just in case you get any inquiries on this, I 
would like to draw your attention to the TC's record, which does not 
substantiate the claim. 

By last November, the ODF TC had completed the technical features it had 
initially set out to do for ODF 1.2: metadata, accessibility, formula and 
database.  We had completed our goals.  But we were still tracking 50 or 
so miscellaneous member proposals on our wiki, and this number was 
increasing.  You can see the list of proposals on the wiki here:

http://wiki.oasis-open.org/office/List_of_Proposals

On November 24th, by decision of the TC, with no objections, we agreed to 
limit the number of additional proposals we would consider for ODF 1.2. 
You can see the agreement in the meeting minutes here:

http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/office/200811/msg00124.html

On December 8th, again without objection, the TC agreed to have a vote on 
which of the remaining member proposals would be considered for ODF 1.2.

This agreement is in the minutes here: 
http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/office/200812/msg00055.html

You can see that step #4 in the minutes called for members to reiterate 
their proposals if they wished to have them included in the ballot. 

The list of reiterated proposals is listed here:

http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/office/200812/msg00089.html

Michael sent a note to make sure that this list was not lacking any 
proposal.  No errors in that list were reported.

We voted on the list and the results are here:

http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/office/200812/msg00156.html

All eligible TC members voted.

So, although it may be cleverly stated that "None of Microsoft's 
interoperability proposals were accepted" this is solely because the TC 
members from Microsoft did not reiterate their proposals and in effect 
withdrew them from consideration.  I remember the call distinctly, where 
they said they did so because they did not want to slow down ODF 1.2.

I want to make sure that the record is crystal clear in this regard, since 
statements are being made, and actions attributed to members of this TC, 
which are false, misleading and reflect poorly on OASIS, this TC, our work 
and our decision making process. I don't think any of us want to see that 
happen.

Regards,

-Rob

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe from this mail list, you must leave the OASIS TC that
generates this mail.  Follow this link to all your TCs in OASIS at:
https://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/portal/my_workgroups.php