TAG TC 2012-12-19 Meeting Minutes

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

Test Assertions Guidelines (TAG) TC Teleconference Meeting
Date: Wednesday, 19 December 2012, 2:15 pm (PST), 22:15 UTC.


Logistics
---------
 
Host confcall: Fujitsu  
US Toll Free: 877-995-3314 
US Toll/International: 210-339-1806
Passcode: 9589308
 
 
Attendance and Quorum
---------------------
The 4/4 Voting Member Attendance Requirement was satisfied the 3/4 Quorum requirement
 
MEMBERS IN ATTENDANCE
 * Jaques Durand, Chair (Fujitsu)
 + Dennis E. Hamilton, Secretary (Individual)
 * Frederick Boland (NIST)
 * Kevin Looney (Oracle)
 * Paul Rank (Oracle)

 [*: Voting Member at start and conclusion of meeting (4)
  +: Becomes Voting Member at conclusion of meeting (1)
  =: Persistent non-Voting Member at start and conclusion of the meeting (0)] 

MEMBERS ABSENT
   Dale Moberg (Axway Software)
   Youngkon Lee (Individual)
 = Patrick Curran (Oracle)
   Dmitry Kostovarov, (Oracle)
   Victor Rudometov, (Oracle)

 [*: Voting member at start and conclusion of the meeting (0)
  -: Becomes non-Voting member at conclusion of the meeting (0)
  =: Persistent non-Voting Member at start and conclusion of meeting (1)] 
 
1. ADMINISTRATIVE MATTERS
    1.1 APPROVAL OF PREVIOUS MINUTES

    The 2012-11-14 Minutes were approved without objection
    <https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/tag/201211/msg00006.html>.
 
    1.2 APPROVAL OF AGENDA
    Points on the agenda were followed in the discussion:
    <https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/tag/201212/msg00005.html>.
 
 
2. ISO PAS SUBMISSION OF TA MODEL

Input on the desirability/feasibility of a PAS Submission had been received.

 - Boland said there was feedback from a NIST ISO Expert.  One concern was the preference that the standards be available without charge.  This would continue to be the case for the OASIS version.  Dennis reported that for JTC1, it is usually the case that the ISO/IEC edition of a PAS-submitted specification is published, it can be added to the freely-available standards list at ISO as well.

 - Durand reported on input from the Fujitsu OASIS Board Member and off-list communications with Jamie Clark.

With regard to the OASIS requirement for an interoperability demonstration, it seemed appropriate to request a waiver of that since the TA Model allows informal conformance without conventional interoperability.

There was also discussion of the need to agree to a maintenance arrangement.  There is a Memorandum of Understanding between OASIS and JTC1 concerning maintenance.  The TAG TC could hold the maintenance and accept defect reports from JTC1 (if that is the International Standard (IS)venue), providing OASIS TA Model Errata documents that would be transposed to corrigenda for the IS version.  There was concern over this being burdensome.  Dennis reported that even if the maintenance authority were moved to JTC1, say, it would still involve the TAG TC.  Furthermore, providing maintenance does not appear to be burdensome.  It is not so bad for OpenDocument Format (ODF), and that is a substantial and complex specification.  Dennis suggested that maintenance should stay with OASIS and the TAG TC because there is work to synchronize the Guide and Markup Language.  If the TAG TC decides to retire, the arrangement could be changed at that point.

Actions:
 1. Find the agreement that applies between OASIS and JTC1
 2. Define what the proposed maintenance arrangement would be as part of the PAS submission.
 3. At a future meeting, have a formal vote on requesting PAS Submission to the OASIS board.
 4. Also find the checklist of what is required in materials for a PAS Submission board request.
 5. Take this up at the next TAG TC meeting.


3. EVOLVING THE TEST ASSERTION GUIDELINES

Looney had raised some issues on the TA Guidelines.  He is requested to submit those issues to the list.

Durand has posted a draft to address other reviewers' comments so far.  

Review is requested, along with Kevin Looney to report whatever concerns he has that are not addressed.




4. FUTURE MEETINGS

The next meeting is tentatively scheduled for Wednesday, January 30, at 2pm Pacific (5pm Eastern).


Respectfully submitted,

 - Dennis E. Hamilton
   TAG TC Secretary