RE: ratifying the charter?

[Karl Best <karl.best@oasis-open.org>]

While I preferred to discuss the general case, the specific example may be
in order. This week a the Security Services TC was formed. The stated
purpose of the TC is to create security specifications using S2ML as the
starting point. Another group of people would like to work on security, but
they want to use AuthXML as the starting point.

The obvious solution is to have two separate committees (and that's probably
what will happen) but I'd like to make it possible for the two groups to
work together to create a single spec rather than two separate specs. That
would require that the committee members vote to "clarify" (or whatever)
what the starting point of their technical work is. Must it be S2ML, as
originally stated, or can it include other technologies as well?

</karl>
============================================================
Karl F. Best
OASIS - Director, Technical Operations
978.667.5115 x206
karl.best@oasis-open.org  http://www.oasis-open.org


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jon Bosak [mailto:bosak@boethius.eng.sun.com]
> Sent: Thursday, November 30, 2000 9:13 AM
> To: workprocess@lists.oasis-open.org
> Subject: Re: ratifying the charter?
>
>
> I attempted a hurried reply to Karl's question when it first
> appeared but was prevented from posting to the list due to a mail
> problem, and I think that Karl was the only person who received
> the message.  In it I said the following:
>
>    The members are committed to the purpose of the TC as stated in
>    the proposal.  They can refine that purpose but not change it.
>    Further ratification is not only not necessary but would create
>    the false impression that the purpose stated in the proposal is
>    open to change.
>
>    People who "join the TC because of the topic of discussion, but
>    don't agree with the details of the charter" should leave that
>    TC and start their own.  This is one of the reasons we made it
>    trivially easy to start a TC and took OASIS out of the position
>    of deciding which of two competing TCs is the "right" one.
>
> Checking now, I find that the relevant section of the bylaws says:
>
>    12. TC Revision
>
>       A TC can clarify its statement of purpose; revise its
>       deliverables; and change its meeting schedule.  Such changes
>       shall be reported on the TC announcement list, and any
>       revisable publicly visible description (e.g., Web page)
>       promulgated by the TC shall be updated to reflect such
>       changes.
>
> We meant by the word "clarify" to limit the TC's ability to change
> its purpose.  What we're trying to prevent is the case where five
> people propose to do something and ten other people who disagree
> with the purpose of a group join it in order to torpedo the effort
> by changing the purpose.
>
> Karl's question indicates that we may have been a bit too subtle
> here, but in retrospect I really can't think of a better way to
> handle this.
>
> Jon
>
> ==================================================================
>
> Date: Tue, 28 Nov 2000 14:24:05 -0500
> From: Karl Best <karl.best@oasis-open.org>
> Subject: ratifying the charter?
> To: workprocess@lists.oasis-open.org
>
> Even though the TC process doesn't require that TC members do so, I would
> like to be able to tell prospective TC participants that "the items
> submitted to OASIS for the creation of the TC (i.e. committee name,
> statement of purpose, list of deliverables, schedule, name of chair, etc.)
> should all be ratified by TC members at the first meeting."
>
> Should such ratification be suggested or even required, or should
> members be
> committed to what was proposed when the TC was created? e.g. if
> people want
> to join the TC because of the topic of discussion, but don't
> agree with the
> details of the charter, should they be required to go with what was
> proposed?
>
> In other words, is the charter made law by default or by ratification?
>
>
> </karl>
> ============================================================
> Karl F. Best
> OASIS - Director, Technical Operations
> 978.667.5115 x206
> karl.best@oasis-open.org  http://www.oasis-open.org
>
>
>