Re: Default Process: Other Committees

[Jon Bosak <bosak@boethius.eng.sun.com>]

I think that my reaction to Paul's description of our former committee
structure can be summed up as follows:

Oy vay.

Which is not to be taken as a criticism; I was there the whole time,
as were several other people on this list.  It's my own fault that I
never asked to see a copy of the bylaws.  And while I know that I got
a copy of the Guidelines for SGML Open Technical Track Activities
exactly four years ago today (because on checking I find that I still
have it), I'm almost equally certain that I didn't pay much attention
to it.  So I have no one but myself to blame for this.  I certainly
don't blame Paul; one thing I clearly do remember is the incredible
amount of thankless work he put into his role as our CTO, and he
deserves nothing but praise for keeping the organization going and
producing useful work.

Let me see what I can be sure of here...  Two things.

1. I think it's safe to say that the organization described in
   the Guidelines for SGML Open Technical Track Activities
   doesn't fit Robert's.  I started to write a long analysis of
   this, but there's no point to it.

2. On the other hand, all the TRs were approved by votes of
   the membership; so as far as I can tell, the TRs themselves
   are perfectly sound.  I think that their procedural status is
   the same as if they had simply been proposed to the membership
   in an open meeting at which a quorum was present.

The part that really puzzles me is this: under the bylaws, there are
only two kinds of committees: committees of the board (which are
further subdivided per art. 5 into executive committees and advisory
committees) and committees of the membership (which are implied by
art. 13 sect. 8, second para).  I'm still not sure whether our old
Technical Committee was a committee of the board or a committee of the
membership.  The first paragraph of the Guidelines for SGML Open
Technical Track Activities makes it sound like it was a committee of
the board:

| As part of our ongoing attempt to improve the effectiveness
| of SGML Open's committee work, the SGML Open Board of
| Directors has formalized our guidelines for the organization
| of SGML Open Technical Committee work.  This message
| describes how the Technical Track has incorporated the
| latest process improvements.

But later it says:

| The guidelines and process improvements described below will
| be reviewed during the Consortium's Annual General
| Membership meeting, scheduled for Thursday, December 7,
| 1995, at 4:00 pm at the Sheraton Hotel and Towers.

This makes it appear to be an action of the membership.

Paul says:

| The Technical Committee just always existed.

I guess that this will remain a Blessed Mystery.  I don't think it's
worth our time now to try to sort it out.  I think that what we should
do instead is to put all the design work aside for a moment and figure
out how to put our present committees on track.

More in a subsequent message.

Jon