Re: Initializing the PAC

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

[robin@isogen.com:]

| I looked on the OASIS Web site (yesterday, maybe) and found
| no information about the Process Advisory Committee.
| Likewise, when I sent a message to the majordomo server
| ('info workprocess') I got a null response.

It's just as well; according to our analysis, we haven't really been
chartered yet.  That's what were about to get done.

| 1) I wonder whether the language will have the effect of
| discouraging participation by virtue of the heavy demands
| upon international travel, viz., in

I now realize that this whole direction was inherited from a mistake
in thinking that meetings four times annually were mandated implicitly
by the bylaws.  With that requirement gone, I think that we can
accomplish the same purpose through phone conferences.

| 2) I wonder whether committee participants (in the general case)
| would feel comfortable declaring their oath of intent and financial
| means to do so, when the terms require them to expect even
| "more detailed criteria for membership and participation" [than
| those articulated] which are not known at the time of declaring
| their oath, so that they are "agreeing in advance" to the changes
| in language:
| 
| >       the board intends to place amendments to the OASIS
| >       Bylaws before the voting membership for their approval
| >       before the date on which this committee is expected to
| >       complete its work; and that upon approval of such
| >       amendments, the committee will proceed under more detailed
| >       criteria for membership and participation.  I agree to [...]

You left off the sentence that makes this all work:

      I agree to submit a letter of resignation to the chair or
      chairs of the committee if I find that I cannot participate
      under the new criteria.

How hard is that?

Note that without this requirement the body that appointed the
committee is missing a necessary cue that a position needs to be
filled:

   The resignation of a member of a committee should be addressed
   to the appointing power, and it is the responsibility of that
   power to fill the resulting vacancy.  (p. 488)

In the absence of notice, an appointing power will have to wait quite
a while to be sure that a member has actually vanished.

| I'll probably sign something like this if it's necessary to
| bootstrap the working process for this committee, but I
| can't quite visualize the need for so much language about
| disqualifying a potential committee participant under
| various criteria.

To ensure a quorum.

If I include comments received privately, I have to say that a
surprising number of us appear to be having a problem understanding
this.  Guys, really, I'm not trying to exclude anyone; I'm trying to
solve a procedural problem.  Let me put it as simply as I can: You can
allow as many participants in a committee as you want, but you must
appoint as voting members only those people who can be counted on to
show up at a meeting.  Otherwise the committee cannot legally transact
business.  The language I proposed would *not* remove anyone from the
list or prevent anyone from taking part in a meeting.  It just
attempts to ensure that enough voting members attend to make the
meetings *legal*.  If you appoint as members everyone on the list, the
committee won't be able to function under Robert's, because you can't
count on most of those people showing up (even for phone conferences,
which are in their way even harder to attend regularly than an
occasional meeting in person).

The self-selection process I'm offering here is actually pretty
daring.  The traditional way is for the appointing power simply to
appoint those few people it thinks it can trust.  I'm trying to make
that process as democratic as possible by allowing interested people
among those on a mailing list to certify themselves as people
committed enough to attend meetings.  If we can't agree on some
reasonably stringent level of commitment, then we will have to fall
back on appointments made the old-fashioned way on the basis of
personal experience with each applicant.  This works, but it tends to
strongly discourage new blood.

On the other hand, it's clear that the language I proposed Monday
places unreasonable demands on us.  I will propose something that
better reflects what we expect to have to do.  Maybe arriving at a
suitable schedule in advance of appointment is something that every
would-be committee will have to do.

Jon