Re: straw poll - 20 items

[Lauren Wood <lauren@sqwest.bc.ca>]

Karl F. Best wrote:


 > 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

Need discussion; it may not be possible to find all other groups doing similar 
work; it may not be feasible given the resources of the TC; and we need to make 
clear that they do not need to liaise or co-ordinate if they choose not to 
(similar for conformance).

 >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.)

_X_ 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
_X_ disagree to require different companies
__ neutral to require different companies


We discussed this at length previously; I have seen no evidence to change our 
decision.

 >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
_X_ disagree to require eligibility at 15 days
__ neutral to require eligibility at 15 days

As Eduardo said, what's wrong with last-minute membership scrambles? I assume 
these will become less scrambly, since more companies have now joined OASIS.

 >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:

Warnings don't reset the clock.


 >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:

In my TC it was useful to have the member still there; but he was only unemployed 
for a short period of time (and then changed companies again, but that's a 
different story).


 >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
_X_ disagree that prospective member must participate
__ neutral that prospective member must participate

We left this up to the chair with good reason; the TC may be large, and there may 
be good reason to think the prospective member will drop out before becoming a 
real member.


 >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
_X_ disagree to allow invited experts
__ neutral to allow invited experts

$250 is not a lot of money to join in. Perhaps OASIS could waive the fees for 
particularly useful individuals, but I think everyone should be a member.


 >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?

The TC should cease. If the people who committed to participating aren't any more, 
then the TC needs to be reconstituted. I see no point in allowing a grace period 
of more than a few days. There is nothing stopping a new TC carrying on the work 
that a previous TC started.


 >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

Which do you mean here? Subscribing to the list and participating in the 
discussions are two different things. Only members of the TC may participate (I 
think this is a good rule).

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

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

Why not? As long as the adjective is there.

 >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?

_X_ 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.

_X_ 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.

_X_ 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:

The ER TC list does use the comments list and we find it useful. Maybe the problem 
is that people aren't yet used to the new process, and most TCs aren't far enough 
along yet to use the comments lists?


 >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:

Why is it embarrassing to OASIS when member initiatives aren't well attended? You 
just say "they're member initiatives".

 >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
_X_ 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
_X_ 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"
_X_ disagree to replace "PEOTCP" with "eligible person"
__ neutral to replace "PEOTCP" with "eligible person"


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Lauren Wood, Director of Product Technology, SoftQuad Software
Chair, XML 2001 - Call for presentations now open at www.xmlconference.org