straw poll - 20 items

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

PAC:

Debbie suggested that we should straw poll the 20 items in advance of the 13
June meeting in order to save time at the meeting. In order to help
accomplish this I am resending the 20 items with choices to vote on.

Please reply to the list with your choices marked on this message. I will
compile any votes received by the day before the meeting. Fell free to add
comments, especially if you're unsure what an agree/disagree vote would
mean.

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



TC Formation
============
1. Add to section 3 that the proposed charter should
  - Identify what other groups/committees inside and outside of OASIS are
doing similar work, and specify what coordination/liaison could or will be
done with those other groups. (This is the same as Robin's suggestion of
4/23)
  - Specify whether conformance testing will be done by this TC or by
another group.
(Note that this is not requiring that the TC do the coordination or
conformance work, just that it must be identified. If the TC does not feel
it is necessary or that the TC does not have the resources to do the work
they can say so, but they must specify this. At the very least this would be
an intellectual exercise, but could also go a long way towards increasing
the quality of OASIS technical work.)

__ agree to add these additional requirements
__ disagree to add these additional requirements
__ neutral to add these additional requirements


2. Add to section 4 that the charter and chair of the TC must be ratified by
the members at the first meeting. This would allow tweaking the charter if
things have changed over the 45 days since the announcement, another group
wants to join in, etc. and would also allow for a different chair if
participants like the charter but not necessarily the person who suggested
it. (However, this admittedly could also introduce problems if a large
number of people wanted to hijack the TC; let's discuss this.)

__ agree to require ratification
__ disagree to require ratification
__ neutral to require ratification


3. Add to section 3 that the three PEOTCPs that create a TC must be from
different companies. This would prevent a single company from starting a TC.

__ agree to require different companies
__ disagree to require different companies
__ neutral to require different companies


TC Membership
=============
4. Add in section 4 that a person must be a PEOTCP at the time of notifying
the chair of the person’s intent to join (i.e. 15 days before first
meeting). This is to avoid last-minute membership scrambles.

__ agree to require eligibility at 15 days
__ disagree to require eligibility at 15 days
__ neutral to require eligibility at 15 days


5. Currently, in section 6, to retain TC membership a person must attend two
out of three meetings. What if a person misses two in a row, gets a warning,
then attends the third meeting so he’s back in, but then misses the fourth?
He’s now attended only one out of four meetings. (This is the case mentioned
by Eve on 3/20 and forwarded by Jon on 4/20.)

My suggestion:


6. In sections 5, 6, and 7, how does a person retain TC membership when
switching employment? How long can the person take to find a new job, and
can they continue to participate while unemployed? (This is a case mentioned
by Lauren on 1/15.)

My suggestion:


7. In section 5 add the requirement that a prospective TC member participate
in the TC as an observer according to the existing "two out of three"
attendance rules during the probationary period. This would make sure that
the new member is committed and educated before being allowed to vote.

__ agree that prospective member must participate
__ disagree that prospective member must participate
__ neutral that prospective member must participate


8. We need to decide whether to allow invited experts to participate in TCs,
and if allowed define how they are invited and what their rights in the TC
are.

__ agree to allow invited experts
__ disagree to allow invited experts
__ neutral to allow invited experts

My suggestion for particpation requirements:


9. What happens when membership in a TC drops below three people? Is a
one-person TC still a TC? How many people are required to be in the TC when
it completes its work and votes to create a Committee Specification?

My suggestion:


Discussion Lists
================
10. Add to section 2 that, while a discussion list is started by PEOTCPs,
subscribers to the discussion lists do not need to be PEOTCPs. This would
allow prospective OASIS members to participate in the discussion to see if
they are interested in joining OASIS for the purpose of participating in the
TC.

__ agree that list subscribers don't need to be PEOTCPs
__ disagree that list subscribers don't need to be PEOTCPs
__ neutral that list subscribers don't need to be PEOTCPs


Standards Process
=================
11. Is OASIS justified in calling the results of our process a "standard",
as we are not a de juere standards organization?

__ agree that OASIS should call its work "standards"
__ disagree that OASIS should call its work "standards"
__ neutral that OASIS should call its work "standards"


12. Define how existing/completed work can be submitted to OASIS to become
an OASIS Standard without having to go through a TC. (I suggest that we
simply require three PEOTCPs to submit the work and certify three
implementations on the existing quarterly schedule. This would save the
effort of setting up a TC and the 45 days wait to hold the first TC
meeting.)

__ agree with suggestion
__ disagree that we should allow this
My alternate suggestion:


13. Should we do anything different for committee work that is not designed
to be submitted to membership for creation as an OASIS Standard? (e.g.
conformance test suites are considered tools, not specs, so are not
submitted to become OASIS Standards.) Should the committee work product
still be reviewed by membership?

__ agree that committee work should be reviewed by members
__ disagree that committee work should be reviewed by members
__ neutral that committee work should be reviewed by members


14. Add that member organizations voting on a proposed OASIS spec must be
members at the time the proposal is submitted to the membership, i.e. the
start of the evaluation period. The 10% required for voting should be based
on the number of member organizations at the start of the evaluation period.
This is to prevent the vote from getting invalidated if we get a bunch of
new members during a ballot period.

__ agree to base vote on membership at start of voting period
__ disagree to base vote on membership at start of voting period
__ neutral to base vote on membership at start of voting period


15. Add to the checklist that the committee’s submission (for a TC
specification to be voted on as an OASIS standard) must include a statement
regarding IPR compliance. Also, the submitted committee specification doc
must include the OASIS copyright statement that is in the IPR.

__ agree to add IPR and copyright to checklist
__ disagree to add IPR and copyright to checklist
__ neutral to add IPR and copyright to checklist


General/Other
=============
16. In section 9 the mail list requirements aren’t very workable: there are
two lists (discuss and comment) used to satisfy three groups of people (TC
members, OASIS members, and the public). The comment lists are required to
exist but are unused. I suggest that the TC process should simply describe
the effect (e.g. "allow outsiders to post comments to the discussion list")
without describing the method to accomplish the goal; let the list
administrator figure out how best to do it. For example, the discussion list
could simply be opened to postings from the public; subscriptions would
still be restricted to members. This would do away with the need for a
separate comment list.

__ agree with suggestion
__ disagree with suggestion
My alternate suggestion:


17. I suggest a shorter amount of time to kill an inactive TC. Currently in
section 11 an inactive TC can only be killed at the beginning of the year
after a full year without a meeting; this could be 12-24 months of
inactivity before the TC can be killed. I suggest that six to nine months of
inactivity (no meetings, no substantive discussion) would be better. It’s
publicly embarrassing to OASIS to have to publicize inactive TCs, and extra
effort is required for OASIS to maintain the TC on our lists, etc.

__ agree with suggestion
__ disagree with suggestion
My alternate suggestion:


18. The TC Process does not define how to set up subcommittees of the TC,
and doesn’t say anything about them at all other than mentioning them as
part of the Joint Committee discussion. The Process should provide
guidelines/rules for their creation and operation.

__ agree that process should define subcomittees
__ disagree that process should define subcomittees
__ neutral that process should define subcomittees


19. The TC Process says little or nothing about how a TC operates once it
has been set up, other than specifying RRO for the conducting of business.
Should more be specified? or is a non-normative guidelines document
sufficient?

__ agree that more should be specified
__ disagree that more should be specified
__ neutral that more should be specified


20. I suggest that throughout the process document we drop the acronym
"PEOTCP" and simply use the phrase "eligible person" instead. This would
make the process document easier to read.

__ agree to replace "PEOTCP" with "eligible person"
__ disagree to replace "PEOTCP" with "eligible person"
__ neutral to replace "PEOTCP" with "eligible person"