Re: [tm-pubsubj] TC comment list configurations (part 3)

[Mary Nishikawa <nisikawa@fuchinobe.oilfield.slb.com>]

Bernard,

Sorry, I have been busy with many things and have just gotten down to 
really look at this carefully.

OK, so let us look at what is written in the OASIS TC process document and 
follow it. First let's look at it to see what we should and should not be doing.

I do not think all of what Karl requested by the way, is what is described 
here, but we have gone overboard a bit in using the comment list for all of 
our discussions.

"The purpose of the TC Comment list is to recieve comments from the public 
and is not for public discussion. The comment list of a TC shall be 
publically subscribable. TCs shall not be required to respond to comments."

So Kal Ahmed can read our publically archived tm-pubsubj list and he can 
post questions to the comment-tm-pubsubj list as much as he wants, and we 
are not required to respond, but, OASIS does not prohibit us from 
commenting on Kal's questions if we wish to.

The TC members are not supposed to begin discussions/or hold all of our 
technical discussions on the comment list.

*Karl Best
The TC Process is quite specific: the TC list is for
| the TC to do the work and the comment list is only for the public to
| send comments to the TC.

Yes, the public can send comments and we "can reply" if we want to. Of 
course once one person asks a question and another replies it becomes a 
"public discussion" on the work of the group. This is not prohibited.

*Karl Best
  I usually give TCs a bit of latitude on this,
| but when I see 90%+ of the discussion taking place on the TM comment
| lists rather than the TM TC members lists I begin to wonder if these
| really are TCs or if OASIS is simply providing free public discussion
| lists.

Not exactly Karl. If you look at our comment list you will see that almost 
everybody there is an OASIS member, (so I would not exactly call it a 
public discussion.) There are a few technical experts (really only 2-3) who 
provide input once in a while and they are not OASIS members. So, OASIS is 
a little more restrictive if we compare it with the W3C and ISO. Both of 
these organizations allow the participation of invited experts without 
having to pay membership dues. So, maybe this needs to be changed in the 
OASIS charter. I think that other TCs have this need to.

The TC members should begin their discussions on the TC list and the 
public(our technical experts) can follow it from there, post their 
questions to the comment list and we will answer their questions there. We 
will then be following the charter strictly.

Cheers,
Mary