sca-j message

Subject: Re: [sca-j] Fw: Appeal of the OASIS decision on SCA-J package names

From: Mike Edwards <mike_edwards@uk.ibm.com>
To: "OASIS Java" <sca-j@lists.oasis-open.org>
Date: Tue, 6 May 2008 12:41:00 +0100

Simon,

I am happy with org.oasisopen.xxxx for the package names.

It's a bit long, but no underscores removes a big objection on my part..

Yours, Mike.

Strategist - Emerging Technologies, SCA & SDO.
Co Chair OASIS SCA Assembly TC.
IBM Hursley Park, Mail Point 146, Winchester, SO21 2JN, Great Britain.
Phone & FAX: +44-1962-818014 Mobile: +44-7802-467431
Email: mike_edwards@uk.ibm.com

Simon Nash/UK/IBM@IBMGB

06/05/2008 09:43

To	sca-j@lists.oasis-open.org
cc
Subject	[sca-j] Fw: Appeal of the OASIS decision on SCA-J package names

The appeal has triggered a response from Mary. See below for the thread of discussion. Mary's proposal is for the package name prefix to be org.oasisopen, eliminating the underscore. If the SCA-J TC finds this package name prefix acceptable, OASIS would approach the owner of oasisopen.org to investigate purchasing the domain.

What do TC members think about org.oasisopen as a package name prefix?

Simon

Simon C. Nash, IBM Distinguished Engineer
Member of the IBM Academy of Technology
Tel. +44-1962-815156 Fax +44-1962-818999
----- Forwarded by Simon Nash/UK/IBM on 06/05/2008 08:30 -----

Simon Nash/UK/IBM

05/05/2008 21:27

To	<mary.mcrae@oasis-open.org>
cc	Anish.Karmarkar@oracle.com, ashok.malhotra@oracle.com, booz@us.ibm.com, eduardo.gutentag@oasis-open.org, jmarino@bea.com, martin.chapman@oracle.com, "'Mary McRae'" <marypmcrae@gmail.com>, mbgl@us.ibm.com, mcombellack@avaya.com, mrowley@bea.com
Subject	RE: Appeal of the OASIS decision on SCA-J package namesLink

Mary,
Thanks for the clarification. I understand the distinction and I will put this on the agenda for this week's SCA-J TC call.

Simon

Simon C. Nash, IBM Distinguished Engineer
Member of the IBM Academy of Technology
Tel. +44-1962-815156 Fax +44-1962-818999

"Mary McRae" <mary.mcrae@oasis-open.org>
Sent by: Mary McRae <marypmcrae@gmail.com>

03/05/2008 17:27

Please respond to
<mary.mcrae@oasis-open.org>

To	Simon Nash/UK/IBM@IBMGB
cc	<Anish.Karmarkar@oracle.com>, <ashok.malhotra@oracle.com>, <booz@us.ibm.com>, <eduardo.gutentag@oasis-open.org>, <jmarino@bea.com>, <martin.chapman@oracle.com>, "'Mary McRae'" <marypmcrae@gmail.com>, <mbgl@us.ibm.com>, <mcombellack@avaya.com>, <mrowley@bea.com>
Subject	RE: Appeal of the OASIS decision on SCA-J package names

Yes – oasisopen.org appears to be owned by someone just sitting on the domain – if it’s agreeable we can look into what it would take to purchase it if that’s absolutely required. Conversely, oasis.org is a live site – a gift/trade show, which is not an acceptable solution.

Mary

From: Simon Nash [mailto:NASH@uk.ibm.com]
Sent: Friday, May 02, 2008 3:12 PM
To: mary.mcrae@oasis-open.org
Cc: Anish.Karmarkar@oracle.com; ashok.malhotra@oracle.com; booz@us.ibm.com; eduardo.gutentag@oasis-open.org; jmarino@bea.com; martin.chapman@oracle.com; Mary McRae; mbgl@us.ibm.com; mcombellack@avaya.com; mrowley@bea.com
Subject: RE: Appeal of the OASIS decision on SCA-J package names

Mary,
The domain oasisopen.org is already owned by someone else, as is the domain oasis.org. If OASIS is willing to offer the prefix org.oasisopen despite not having ownership of oasisopen.org, would OASIS be willing to offer the prefix org.oasis? It would seem inconsistent to offer one of these but not the other.

The TC proposed org.oasisj because the oasisj.org domain is currently unowned and therefore available for acquisition by OASIS. If this is not a constraint, my personal preference would be org.oasis. In expressing this preference I am speaking for myself and not on behalf of the TC.

Simon

Simon C. Nash, IBM Distinguished Engineer
Member of the IBM Academy of Technology
Tel. +44-1962-815156 Fax +44-1962-818999

"Mary McRae" <mary.mcrae@oasis-open.org>
Sent by: Mary McRae <marypmcrae@gmail.com>
02/05/2008 19:49

Please respond to
<mary.mcrae@oasis-open.org>

To
Simon Nash/UK/IBM@IBMGB, <eduardo.gutentag@oasis-open.org>

cc
<mbgl@us.ibm.com>, <booz@us.ibm.com>, <martin.chapman@oracle.com>, <mcombellack@avaya.com>, <Anish.Karmarkar@oracle.com>, <jmarino@bea.com>, <mrowley@bea.com>, <ashok.malhotra@oracle.com>

Subject
RE: Appeal of the OASIS decision on SCA-J package names

Hi all,

My apologies for not sending a formal response sooner – I have been at the OASIS Symposium all week attending sessions and meetings and literally just arrived home after a red-eye flight. I spoke with Mike Edwards about this on Tuesday at the member reception. While the use of the underscore is the recommended practice, we (OASIS staff) all agree that underscores are thorny characters and would prefer to omit them. I asked Mike if he thought simply dropping the hyphen would be acceptable and he indicated that he thought it would – i.e. org.oasisopen.csa.

Eduardo, in the role of interim President, has been part of this conversation. If the above is acceptable to the TC, please acknowledge.

Regards,

Mary

From: Simon Nash [mailto:NASH@uk.ibm.com]
Sent: Friday, May 02, 2008 12:58 PM
To: eduardo.gutentag@oasis-open.org
Cc: mbgl@us.ibm.com; booz@us.ibm.com; martin.chapman@oracle.com; mcombellack@avaya.com; Anish.Karmarkar@oracle.com; jmarino@bea.com; mrowley@bea.com; ashok.malhotra@oracle.com; mary.mcrae@oasis-open.org
Subject: Appeal of the OASIS decision on SCA-J package names

The undersigned Eligible Members of the OASIS SCA-J TC wish to appeal the decision by Mary McRae attached below (ref. [1]). This appeal is being submitted by individual members of the SCA-J TC, as required by the OASIS TC Process. In addition, the SCA-J TC has voted to add its backing to this appeal by a majority of 9 to 1.

Our grounds for this appeal are as follows.

TECHNICAL

(Summary)

The proposed package name prefix does not conform to normal Java naming conventions, is hard to say and hard to type, and would not be liked by Java developers.

(Detail)

The decision comes in two parts.

1. The need for the SCA Java APIs to change the package name prefix from "org.osoa " to a different package name prefix that is controlled by OASIS.
2. The proposed package name prefix of "org.oasis_open" to be used by the SCA-J TC.

This appeal concerns the second part of the decision. The SCA-J TC discussed this and voted not to accept the proposed package name prefix of "org.oasis_open", for the following reasons:

1. The proposed package name prefix does not conform to normal Java naming conventions. Specifically, the use of an underscore in package names is highly unusual and unconventional.

2. The proposed package name prefix is hard to say and hard to type. When talking about these APIs, it would be necessary to say "org dot oasis underscore open dot sca dot ComponentContext". When typing these APIs, the shifted character underscore would need to be entered. Both of these are burdensome on SCA Java developers.

3. Precedents (as far as they exist) suggest that this package name prefix would not be liked by Java developers. Specifically, package names containing underscores have been used for some CORBA package names in the JDK, and these have been the subject of user complaint.

The "org.oasis_open" package name is the result of applying the convention suggested in the Java Language Specification (Third Edition, section 7.7) to the "oasis-open.org" domain name. In order to produce an acceptable package name, the Java package prefix would need to be derived from some other domain name. The SCA-J TC discussed some options and voted to recommend the org.oasisj prefix to OASIS as being suitable and acceptable. This would require that OASIS acquires the corresponding domain name, which is currently available.

PROCEDURAL

(Summary)

This decision was a reversal of an earlier decision, and the earlier decision was reversed without consultation with the SCA-J TC despite multiple efforts by the TC to engage in dialogue.

(Detail)

This issue was raised with Mary on March 2 (ref. [2]). She sent a decision on March 7 (ref.[3]) On March 10 she asked us to hold off from implementing the decision and said she may have a couple of questions to be answered (ref. [4]).

I replied to Mary on March 10 (ref. [5]) inviting her or other OASIS staff involved in the decision to discuss this matter with the SCA-J TC. She did not respond. On March 25, I sent another email (ref. [6]) repeating my invitation to discuss this with the TC. Again, she did not respond.

On April 3 she sent a response (ref. [1]) with a decision that completely reversed the original decision. There had been no consultation with the TC about this change to the decision, despite my two invitations to have this discussion. She also indicated that the decision was final (despite the lack of discussion) and that it could only be changed by formal appeal.

This decision was unacceptable to the TC for the technical reasons stated above.

On April 24 I sent Mary an email informing her of this (ref. [7]), with a proposed resolution that would be acceptable to the TC, and asking if we could resolve this without need for an appeal. She acknowledged the email (ref. [8]) and said she would get back to us in a few days. She has not done so.

At this point we are up against the 30-day appeal deadline and the TC has exhausted all attempts to reach a mutually agreeable resolution through dialogue, despite all efforts to do this.

We therefore feel we have no option but to initiate this formal appeal.

Simon Nash IBM OASIS SCA-J TC Co-Chair
Michael Rowley BEA Systems, Inc. OASIS SCA-J TC Co-Chair
Michael Beisiegel IBM OASIS SCA-J TC Voting Member
David Booz IBM OASIS SCA-J TC Voting Member
Mark Combellack Avaya Inc. OASIS SCA-J TC Voting Member
Martin Chapman Oracle Corporation OASIS SCA-J TC Voting Member
Jim Marino BEA Systems, Inc. OASIS SCA-J TC Voting Member
Anish Karmarkar Oracle Corporation OASIS SCA-J TC Voting Member
Ashok Malhotra Oracle Corporation OASIS SCA-J TC Member

REFERENCES

[1] http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/sca-j/email/archives/200804/msg00007.html
[2] http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/sca-j/email/archives/200803/msg00000.html
[3] http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/sca-j/email/archives/200803/msg00022.html
[4] http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/sca-j/email/archives/200803/msg00026.html
[5] http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/sca-j/email/archives/200803/msg00027.html
[6] http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/sca-j/email/archives/200803/msg00060.html
[7] http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/sca-j/email/archives/200804/msg00044.html
[8] http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/sca-j/email/archives/200804/msg00045.html

Simon C. Nash, IBM Distinguished Engineer
Member of the IBM Academy of Technology
Tel. +44-1962-815156 Fax +44-1962-818999

Unless stated otherwise above:
IBM United Kingdom Limited - Registered in England and Wales with number 741598.
Registered office: PO Box 41, North Harbour, Portsmouth, Hampshire PO6 3AU

References:
- Fw: Appeal of the OASIS decision on SCA-J package names
  - From: Simon Nash <NASH@uk.ibm.com>