Re: getting the ER TC going

["G. Ken Holman" <gkholman@CraneSoftwrights.com>]

At 00/11/22 15:51 -0800, Lauren Wood wrote:
>On 22 Nov 2000, Terry Allen wrote:
>
> > Lauren asked:
>
> > Unfortunately I'll miss the Monday call, and so far I'm not
> > going to be in D.C.
>
>Oh well. Anybody else volunteer?

Volunteer for what ... is there somewhere I can help?

> > I missed the part where we pledged to attend meetings and were approved
> > as a TC.  Are we at the optional first step:
>
>No, we're at the actual TC step. We had enough people to skip the
>optional discussion step, so we're at the formal beginning. I guess
>if we have to, we could treat Monday's call as not being the formal
>"first meeting" to give people the 15 days to notify me that they
>wish to be considered members; this would obey the process but I
>would rather make that phone call the real first meeting if I can.

Given that Karl has already announced 2000-10-11 the intention to form a TC 
and invited people to join the discussion list, I think this can be your 
first meeting:

    To become a member of this new TC you should notify Lauren Wood, the
    committee chair, of your interest, and participate in the first meeting.
    ...
    I have created a mail list, entity-resolution, for the committee
    discussions. OASIS members who are interested in participating in this
    committee should subscribe to the entity-resolution list by sending a
    message to entity-resolution-request@lists.oasis-open.org with the word
    "subscribe" as the body of the message.

Wait ... now I think I see what was missed ... I thought when I saw the 
announcement that Karl was in the process of satisfying step 3, but that 
would mean that the public notification part of step 2 was probably missed 
(I don't see the invitation to discuss the possibility of forming a TC).

The title of Karl's posting was "TC Call for Participation" and all 
references therein were to the implying the discussion had already happened 
and that we were already on to step 3.

So I now see the question boiling down to "Can step 2 be satisfied with 
enough PEOTCPs wanting a TC that the discussion of the TC necessity isn't 
necessary?".

If the answer is "yes", then this can be your first meeting.  If the answer 
is "no", then this is where you decide to actually form the TC itself.

Rereading the process, I think the answer is "yes" and this can be your 
first meeting.  Step 4 (first meeting) is explicitly conditional on step 3 
(TC Formation), but step 3 is *not* explicitly conditional on step 2 (TC 
Discussion Lists) in the text.  Yes, step 2 is helpful to deciding if there 
is a step 3, but the text of step 3 does not require that step 2 has to 
have been executed.

So, to the PEOTCPs involved it must have been obvious that Step 2 wasn't 
necessary, so Karl wasn't out of line in going to Step 3 on October 11 to 
announce the formation of the TC and Call for Participation.  I think we 
can see Step 2 as a mechanism available to be used if so requested by 
PEOTCPs unaware of the level of interest in the TC, but that it isn't a 
mandatory mechanism that all TCs *must* follow because I can't find 
anywhere in the document that says Step 2 is required or is a prerequisite 
to another step.

I don't see a problem that the thirty-day rule in Step 4 wasn't quite 
followed because in the Call for Participation it explicitly named the 
starting date of November 27 ... there wasn't any risk of TC formation 
falling apart from lack of interest because the first meeting was already 
booked, it just happened to not be booked in the first 30 days.

Since we are already past the 15-day period prior to the first meeting that 
is mentioned in Step 4, you already have your roster of voting committee 
members for the first meeting.  At your discretion you can invite OASIS 
members who have expressed interest in becoming a voting member to attend 
... the "close of third meeting attended or 60 elapsed days" rule dictates 
when they can vote.

So ... I think you should have at it and good luck producing your spec!

.................... Ken


--
G. Ken Holman                    mailto:gkholman@CraneSoftwrights.com
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