RE: [soa-rm] A draft open letter to Avaya, Inc

["Bashioum, Christopher D" <cbashioum@mitre.org>]

Only reply is a tech-edit:

 3rd para down, 2nd sentence which begins with the following: "I have
made an agenda item ..." The fragment identified with *** needs to be
deleted: 

I have made an agenda item at the beginning of the meeting which will
allow *** you a chance to ***
you or any other representative of Avaya, Inc. the opportunity to come
forth
and provide further details on why you feel the current specification
should
not proceed 


-----Original Message-----
From: Duane Nickull [mailto:dnickull@adobe.com] 
Sent: Monday, October 02, 2006 1:06 PM
To: soa-rm@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: [soa-rm] A draft open letter to Avaya, Inc

Hi TC:

As chair, I took the initiative to craft a letter to Avaya, inc. to
request
further clarification on their stance against the SOA RM work.  Despite
the
fact that 89 other companies voted yes, we have a duty to provide them
a
fair say in the matter and should listen to their concerns openly.
Please
note that Avaya has two observers on the TC who will receive a digest
of
this email and have also had the opportunity to express their opinions
at
earlier opportunities.  I will also cc them on the letter to make sure
they
are able to clarify their company's position.

Everything we have done in this TC has been done largely by consensus,
meaning the lack of sustained opposition.  This might be the first time
we
actually have sustained opposition but I would like to think that maybe
we
can work this out with Avaya.  This letter is meant to provide them a
chance
to express their concerns.

Here is a copy of the letter I wish to send them as TC  chair.  If you
have
comments, please respond back to this thread within the next two hours.
After that, I will send this letter to Avaya's primary representative,
Wu
Chou:

Dear Wu Chou, Avaya Inc.
 
As chair of the OASIS SOA RM TC, I am writing you as the primary
representative of Avaya, Inc. a second and final time to request
further
information.  Your company cast the sole negative vote on a recent
ballot
for the OASIS Reference Model for SOA to become a full OASIS standard,
being
the lone opposition to 89 positive votes by member companies who feel
the
standard should proceed as is.  The standards process dictates that ³if
at
the end of the voting period at least 15 percent of the voting
membership
has voted to approve the proposed standard, and if no votes have been
cast
to disapprove the proposed standard, it shall become an OASIS Standard
immediately following the end of the voting period. However, if
negative
votes amounting to less than 15 percent of the voting membership have
been
cast, the TC shall be notified of the negative votes, after which the
TC
shall have 30 days to take one of the following actions by Resolution
of a
Special Majority Vote: (a) request the TC Administrator to approve the
specification as submitted despite the negative votes; (b) withdraw the
submission entirely; or (c) submit an amended specification, in which
case
the amended submission shall be considered as if it were a new
submission,
except that information regarding previous votes and any disposition of
comments received in previous votes shall accompany the amended
submission.²
 
The entire process is outlined at the following URL:
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/process.php#3.4.
 
Before requesting this information, I would like to point out a few
things.
As chair, I am completely unbiased and merely facilitate the process.
If
you feel the specification is not correct, you are both encouraged and
entitled to express your reason why to the TC.  The TC must listen to
every
dissent to understand whether or not the current Committee
Specification
before them is worthy of becoming a full OASIS Standard. I will ensure
you
have a good environment upon which to express your concerns to the TC.
I
would also like to request that you might take the time to explain why
Avaya, Inc. decided not to participate in the standards creation
process or
any of the previous public review periods and simply wait until the
last and
final public ballot to dissent.  We have noted that you have two
observers
on the TC roster who have had access to the TC's work for months.  Many
people on the TC have expressed concern over this and I need to
understand
if there is somewhere in the process that may have failed to offer
Avaya an
opportunity to get involved.  If the TC process is not optimized, we
can
make a note of it to the OASIS board to hopefully get it rectified.
 
Our next meeting is scheduled to occur this Wednesday, October 4 at
8:00 AM
PDT.  The dial in numbers are online on the TC home page.  I have made
an
agenda item at the beginning of the meeting which will allow you a
chance to
you or any other representative of Avaya, Inc. the opportunity to come
forth
and provide further details on why you feel the current specification
should
not proceed.  PLEASE NOTE: the current explanation you provided as an
official primary representative of Avaya was largely looked upon as
insufficient to clarify why we should not proceed to a vote to become
an
OASIS standard.  While this is only an observation and not a formal
position
of the TC, I feel that unless Avaya proceeds to clarify with more
specific
details why the RM for SOA should not proceed, there is a strong
possibility
that the TC may vote to ignore your concerns as expressed on the vote.
 
Specifically, the official Avaya statement of :
 
³Too vague and confusing, e.g. things which are not SOA can be mapped
into
this and claim they conform to this SOA model.² does not sufficiently
provide details of what things are mapable and should not be in the RM.
 
Please take the next 36 hours to decide and inform the OASIS Technical
Committee of one of the following choices:
 
1. (default) We are not going to provide further details; or
2. Avaya Inc will have an representative attend the conference call on
Wednesday, Oct 4 2006 to provide further clarification as to why we
feel
this specification should not proceed to become a full OASIS
Specification;
or 
3. Avaya, Inc. is not available for the call next Wednesday however
would
like to set up a separate meeting to discuss concerns.  Such meeting
will be
scheduled to occur within 10 days in order to provide sufficient time
for
the OASIS SOA RM TC to evaluate our concerns and vote before the 30 day
deadline. 
 
If we do not receive a response to this letter, we will assume that you
have
selected option #1.  Please feel free to contact me on my personal cell
at
604 726 3329 if you wish to discuss this matter further.
 
Thank you for taking the time to consider the request.
 
Duane Nickull
TC Chair.

-- 
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Sr. Technical Evangelist - Adobe Systems, Inc.       *
Chair - OASIS SOA Reference Model Technical Committee*
Blog: http://technoracle.blogspot.com                *
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