Re: process for workprocess cte

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

[Eduardo.Gutentag@eng.sun.com:]

| General comment: In what follows you seem to make a
| distinction between (all individual and institutional OASIS
| members) on the one hand and (all employees of OASIS member
| organizations) on the other, inasmuch as only the latter are
| required to have a supervisor's signature. But
| representatives from institutional OASIS members are as
| constrained, I would think, as employees of Oasis member
| organizations when it comes to travel budget, so I wonder
| why you place the virtual parentheses that way instead of
| individuals on one side and all others on the other side

Institutional membership is a kind of individual membership -- same
cost, same benefits.  The difference is that *with proper
notification* an institutional membership is transferable in case an
individual holding the membership ceases to become available to
participate on behalf of the institution.  The intended effect of this
is to allow any organization to have a membership with individual
benefits.  (I don't know how well the notification process is
specified at the moment, but I do know that's how this is supposed to
function.)

| I think the following should be added: "The anticipated
| lifetime of the committee is [X] months, and a maintenance
| committee is/is not foreseent at this time". I think the
| person submitting the proposal should specify in the
| proposal the anticipated lifetime of the committee.

This requirement has caused such an unbelievable amount of trouble in
W3C work that we're starting to give up on it.  (I can't go into
further detail because I don't know for a fact that all the people on
this list are W3C members.)  Both Eduardo Gutentag and David Singer
have registered opinions to the contrary, but I maintain that in
designing XML standards, the idea that you can force out a usable
result by setting a date for completion can easily yield an
illustration of Brooks's classic dictum about expecting nine women to
have a baby in one month.

| >        I understand that OASIS committees meet in person at least
| ***
| Does it have to be "at least"? Why not "on average"?

This resulted from some absent-mindedness on my part.  You're right,
committees meet whenever they want (unless the board directs them
otherwise).  I see that this will have some effects on what I was
proposing for the long-term process; I'll make those changes when we
come back to that.

| Too vague; how about "failure to attend two consecutive meetings"

[...]

| Too vague; how about "failure to respond to two consecutive
| ballots in a timely manner"

[...]

| Some reassurance that a change in procedures will not result
| in the elimination of the committee may be needed at this
| point.

[...]

We should think about these when we pick up the long-term "autopilot"
process.  For the short-term process, which we expect to run under
manual control (see subsequent messages), I don't think that such
specific criteria are necessary.

| Jon, I think this is quite workable as an interim
| solution. My feeling is that this is the most urgent piece
| of business for this group at this point, and that once
| we've succeeded in ensuring the formation of new committees
| we can proceed with the rest of the work.  The only major
| holes/imperfections I can see in the above are, if I may
| repeat myself:
| 
| a) what is the process whereby the Board commits?
| b) what is the role, if any, of a chair?
| c) how is the chair elected?
| d) how are new participants approved?
| e) who actually eliminates participants? The Board, the
| chair or the group, by vote?

I believe that all of this will be covered by Robert's in the interim
process that's going to be proposed.

Jon