A message from Board Candidate Howard Shao

Voting reps,

Howard Shao has submitted the following replies to our Member questions for your review. Unfortunately, this information was not available to be included when the ballot and candidate documents were posted. Please give his replies careful consideration as you do all other candidate’s replies, available at http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/voting/download.php/3869/questionairre.html.

A web based version of this candidate information will reside on the Organizational Voting group document list. http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/voting/download.php/3932/shao_questionairre.html

Scott…

Question 1:

Do you feel that the current OASIS IPR Policy is adequate for the consortium? If not, what would you change in the current policy? Should OASIS adopt an IPR policy similar to W3C's? Why?

There is no easy answer for IPR Policy. The OASIS IPR Policy currently follows the spirit of OASIS Technical Committees which has allowed OASIS to grow as an organization and spur important standards development. If OASIS did attempt to implement a stricter IPR Policy it could be difficult to enforce and it may also potentially limit important standardization work. I believe OASIS should promote wide adoption and accessibility to standards as much as possible and should discourage any obvious abuse of the standardization process. Encouraging disclosures and listing them clearly, is one step that OASIS has taken that is extremely beneficial to OASIS members and the community at large, but the more that can be done in this area the better.

A lot of hard work went into determining the IPR Policy for the W3C, but I recognize that OASIS is a different organization. There are many common members across both organizations, if the OASIS Board and Organization feels it can implement such a process, I would recommend that they put it to the membership for a vote.

Question 2:

Do you think OASIS should work to better optimize the liaisons of OASIS and its Member Sections and TCs to other standards organizations in order to better align (partly) overlapping efforts? How?

At the end of day the industry would like a clear stack of standards that build on top of each other and work together.

OASIS should do all that it can to facilitate this occurring by:

· Having reciprocal membership with other standard organizations

· Facilitating and promoting cross participation in related activities both within and beyond OASIS.

· Where feasible introducing recommendations for base standards to be used in new work developed by TCs.

This is not to say that technical committees should be prevented from starting new work - as with all architectural projects certain components can be improved upon and evolved, and they may need to address slightly different problem spaces. However, wherever possible OASIS should attempt to gain industry alignment while still supporting innovation and its open process.

Question 3:

What is your position on the flexibility of OASIS' process with regard to the formation of TCs? Do you think that there should be a means to avoid duplicate efforts (both within OASIS and related to other organizations)? If so, how should this be accomplished?

As mentioned above, I believe OASIS should strive for a balance between innovation and alignment. Where possible OASIS should attempt to gain industry alignment but should not prevent the formation of new TC's. OASIS should encourage duplicate efforts to align or at least liaise with each other - there have been a number of successful examples of this in the last two years. The TAB could facilitate identifying similar efforts if required.

OASIS could also take a more proactive approach to the formation of TCs - by gathering feedback from the membership for areas that should be tackled and encouraging the early formation of TCs and industry alignment.

Question 4:

The OASIS current mission statement includes helping to 'drive the ... adoption of e-Business standards'. Do you believe that this is an appropriate role for OASIS? Does e-Business adequately define our space? Should we be doing more to foster adoption and implementation of specs and standards produced at OASIS? If so, what specific recommendations should we pursue?

Standards are only useful in the end if they are adopted. The standards work at OASIS is very broad from core Horizontal technology standards to Vertical initiatives - I believe that this is an appropriate role for OASIS, and that e-Business is an encompassing definition of the space.

OASIS has been growing rapidly over the last few years - and much of the work has only recently been standardized. As with any organization, there are a number of things that OASIS will need to do over the next few years to ensure it can scale appropriately and also ensure it has sufficient processes for dealing with the "post-standardization" phase. This will be critical to support adoption of these specifications. OASIS has done a good job improving infrastructure over the last year.

Some potential areas OASIS may consider:

· Ensure adequate infrastructure to support the TCs and the technical process.

· Support for ensuring quality of standards - templates, writing guidelines and editorial support

· Guidelines for maintenance of Standards (bugs, backward-compatibility.)

· Promote the use of OASIS standards in new work being developed in OASIS and other standard bodies.

· Encourage implementations of the standards in products.

· Encourage the development of white-papers, books, and other educational and marketing material.

When standards have been developed with industry alignment, based on end-user demand (horizontal and/or vertical) and are of good quality - adoption will be natural and rapid. This is what OASIS should strive for.

Question 5:

What should OASIS do to get more end-user and international companies involved - especially in the requirements definition and in implementation activities?

A number of end-user or vertical consortia are attempting to create their own XML/Web Services standards. OASIS should attempt to get more verticals to do this work within or in association with OASIS and also more closely align vertical and horizontal activities.

This will provide benefits to all:

· XML/Web Services Expertise to combine with the domain knowledge of the vertical organizations

· Ensure that the horizontal technologies are developed to meet the needs of the vertical applications

· Provide a ready market for adoption of these standards

Some international activities can also be treated like vertical initiatives. However, if OASIS is serious about international growth it needs to provide basic support such as translations, potentially by forming affiliations with local organizations.

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