Charter: Participating Member conditions

[Hans Holger Rath <hhr@step.de>]

Dear TopicMaps.Org members,

As many of you might know STEP is one of Europe's leading 
companies in the Topic Maps arena and wants to become a
Participating Member of TopicMaps.Org providing substantial
input to the spec. Unfortunately nobody from STEP was able 
to attend the last two meetings in Washington and San Jose.

With this in mind I read the charter (2000/03/03) very 
carefully and figured out some "problems" for STEP 
(you might call me paranoid):

I refer to section "3.5.2. Adding Participating Members and 
Assigning Classifications":

-	"No more than one official Participating Member is allowed 
	per organization."

	STEP is a group of companies in Germany, Hungary, Poland, 
	and UK all belonging to a large holding: Bertelsmann.

	Does this count as "one organization"?

-	"To be considered for Participating Membership, a person 
	must have actively participated in the two preceding 
	face-to-face TopicMaps.Org AG meetings in their entirety, ..."

	As stated before nobody from STEP participated the last two
	meetings. NB: It was not very "Europe friendly" having both
	in the US.

	Do we have to attend the next two meetings to be considered
	for Participating Membership or could be ask for Participating 
	Membership immediately?

-	"When technology-oriented Participating Members are added,
	technology-oriented Participating Members may not constitute
	"an absolute majority of the resulting TopicMaps.Org 
	Specification Authoring Group."

	I do not know the current ratio between content-oriented
	and technology-oriented members. But if the tekkies are 
	already in the majority and no more technology-oriented
	members will be considered before the ratio is fine, then
	this is quite unfair to companies -- like STEP -- which 
	were involved in many TM discussions before but did
	not know that participation in Washington and San Jose are 
	preconditions becoming a Participating Member (I just assume
	that all Wash./S.Jose participants could become a Participant 
	Member without applying these rules. Am I right or wrong?).

I would appreciate it very much, if someone would answer my question
in a way that I do not have to worry about STEP's Participating 
Membership any longer.

Another issue: What is the reason you bind the Participating Membership
to an individual person and not to a company delegating a person (yes,
it is somehow possible with "Replacement" or "Substitution" but this 
is complicated and requires voting)?

And finally: The minutes of the S.Jose meeting say "Next meeting will 
be in Paris, preceding and/or following XML Europe 2000 in June. Steve 
Pepper's suggestion to have the meeting at XML Scandinavia 2000 (Sweden) 
in May was also considered.": Have you fixed the days for Paris already
(we are booking hotels and flights at the moment) and made a decision 
about a meeting in Sweden (pro or cons)?

Regards,
--Holger

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   \/\X\   Hans Holger Rath .................................................
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