Re: OASIS-Open Group SOA Activity

[James Bryce Clark <jamie.clark@oasis-open.org>]

CC to SOA-RM TC

From: James Bryce Clark <jamie.clark@oasis-open.org>
Date: Oct 20, 2008
Subject: Re: OASIS-Open Group SOA Activity
To: Duane Nickull <dnickull@adobe.com>
Cc: Heather Kreger <kreger@us.ibm.com>

Duane, the harmonization initiative in general sounds great.
Congratulations to the group for finding a possible path to
convergence here.

As you know, and as Heather also likely remembers from her service as
an excellent OASIS committee chair, there are several ways to conduct
joint meetings and liaisons.

   -- Joint meetings can be held, though they don't count as official
TC meetings for OASIS.  This is because OASIS TC meetings only may be
attended by OASIS members, amd only TC members can speak there,
largely for IPR reasons.  However, OASIS TCs often have created
informal discussion sessions or conferences with other outside
entities.  To conform to OASIS rules, these events that include
nonmembers must occur outside of an official meeting of the TC.  We've
had TCs run joint information sessions (both F2F and by telephone)
immediately before a regular TC meetings;  the nonmembers simply
depart when the official TC meeting starts.

   -- If another group is hosting, of course, it'd be their rules that
create any meeting attendance limits.

   -- In either case, the SOA=RM TC can, and probably should,designate
a liaison person to the other org (like the Open Group), under our
Liaison Policy, as described here:
  http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/liaison_policy.php#tcliaison
Usually TCs choose persons who are eligible to participate in both
groups -- and so can serve as the conduit for carrying and forwarding
information back and forth, in compliance with the policies of both
orgs.   The TC votes on these appointments, which we track and post
publicly.  The appointed liaisons cannot commit their TC or OASIS to a
specific position, but do fulfill a useful information transmission
function.  I'd suggest you have the SOA RM TC select a liaison.  It
tremendously helps these inter-org relationships, when each org has
one or two explicit names from the other, explicitly added to its
notification lists, and known as a touch point for coordination.

Depending on how combined those other efforts are, would the TC need
one liaison or two?   (One for The Open Group, and one for the
relevant OMG activity,)

Looking ahead:

   --  If there were to be significant work to combine the models,
components might need to be contributed between orgs in ways that make
them usable by both.   (For example, material that's brought in to
expand or change the OASIS SOA-RM would need either to be contributed
by an OASIS member, per the usual route, or received under our public
Feedback License.)   However, it's possible that no "contribution" in
any direction would be needed to write and publish a cross-mapping
between models.

   -- Obviously, any decision or statement regarding the SOA-RM TC's
intent to collaborate  in some way with another project would require,
among other things, an explicit vote of approval from the TC.  If
there's cross-mapping to be done, that activity also ought to be
assessed as properly within the TC's charter.  (My first read is that
it's probably covered, but that's neither binding nor careful
analysis.)

   -- Do I correctly hear that it's the current intent of the TC to
hold off on sending anything like RA v1.0 out to an ISO or ITU?

Kind regards Jamie

~ James Bryce Clark, Director of Standards Dev.
~ OASIS:  advancing open standards for the information society
~ http://www.oasis-open.org/who/staff.php#clark
~ +1 310 293 6739 GSM, +1 978 667 5115 x203 office

  Duane Nickull wrote:
  > I plan to be there as at least an observer.  If we can get the
  > goahead from everyone, I would like to get involved at a deeper
  > level.  Can you please send me the exact details for the face to
  > face?
  >
  >> Hello, Duane -
  >> Thanks for your e-mail! The Open Group sees harmonization of SOA
  >> concepts as very important. As you know, we are planning a
  >> meeting on this topic at our San Diego conference in the week of
  >> February 2, and hope to see representation there from OASIS and
  >> from the OMG. This will be an excellent opportunity to establish
  >> a common position. Meanwhile, I see no problem in principle from
  >> an Open Group perspective with our participation in an OASIS
  >> meeting. Practical issues may of course need to be resolved, and
  >> we would need to establish who would attend on behalf of The
  >> Open Group. Can you tell us, please, where and when your next
  >> face-to-face meeting is?
  >>
  >>  Duane Nickull wrote:
  >>> Jamie, Chris:
  >>> Today during the OASIS SOA RM RA SC call, IBM came and we
  >>> discussed reconciling the disparate activities WRT SOA.  IMHO,
  >>> this meeting was extremely beneficial and there are a few items
  >>> we wish to pursue.
  >>> One of these is to have Open Group invited to a future face to
  >>> face meeting to discuss alignment, reconciliation, harmonization
  >>> and or potentially convergence for an SOA Reference Architecture
  >>> document. In order to do this, the Open Group would need to be
  >>> present during our next F2F meeting.  We wish to ask you if
  >>> there are any reasons why we as a TC cannot pursue this or, in
  >>> the alternative, do we require some higher agreement between the
  >>> two parent organizations?
  >>> We are also planning on a mapping of major concepts in documents
  >>> and potentially harmonizing terminology where applicable for the
  >>> benefit of the industry at whole.
  >>> Duane