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Subject: Minutes of the OASIS PAC meeting 2001.06.27
MINUTES OF THE OASIS PROCESS ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING 2001.06.27
Voting Members Present
Karl Best
Jon Bosak (chair)
Robin Cover
Eduardo Gutentag
Debbie Lapeyre
Tommie Usdin
Lauren Wood
Absent with Regrets
Ken Holman
Proceedings
For the sake of consistency with the record of the last meeting
(2001.06.13), the chair took notes and has prepared these
minutes.
We continued with the plan decided on in meetings held
2001.04.18 and 2001.05.30 to consider a number of issues
related to the existing OASIS TC process before ending this
phase of the process development work. In this meeting, we
finished the half of the issues list provided by Karl Best that
was left over from the previous one. In the summary below, the
numbers refer to the issue numbers in Karl's list.
Action Items
In our last meeting we said:
In addition to the recommendations listed below, the PAC
hereby requests the OASIS board of directors (1) to note
that the PAC intends to submit all of our proposed
amendations to the current OASIS TC process for
consideration by the board at the board meeting scheduled
for 2 August 2001, and (2) to schedule a special meeting or
conference call after formation of the new board following
the annual board elections in order that the PAC may present
the plan arrived at between the PAC and the TAC regarding
the direction to be taken in further development of the
OASIS technical committee process. We propose a phone
conference from 11 a.m. from 1 p.m. California time 22
August 2001 for this meeting.
It was noted that the next board conference call would take
place 12 July, and that we would have to have proposals in to
the board 7-10 days in advance of that meeting to be
considered. The chair took the action to contact Patrick
Gannon in order for our proposals to be considered in that
meeting.
The chair also took an action to notify James Clark, Chair of
the Relax NG TC, of our action with regard to Issue 16.
Editorial note and apology from the chair: I screwed up and
didn't get the proposals drafted in time for the Board to
consider in its meeting of 12 July. After talking to Karl, I
am preparing drafts for the Board to consider at its meeting 2
August instead.
Meetings
We are next scheduled to meet by phone 11 a.m. to 1 p.m
California time on 22 August 2001. We hope to spend that time
explaining to the Board our plan for moving forward with the
creation of a process for Board initiatives.
Jon
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DISPOSITION OF ISSUES, 2001.06.27
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Issue 11: Standards Process: the term "standard"
Discussion: "Standard" is the word that's used in our IPR
policy; this alone is a good reason not to change what we call
the output of the two-phase OASIS process. Beyond that, our
process meets the generic criteria for a standards organization
in that it's democratic and is open to participation by all
interested parties.
Resolution: Let it stand. The Board can change this if it
wants, but it will also have to revise its IPR policy to
reflect the change.
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Issue 12: Possible shortcuts to standardization
Discussion: The current rules require a TC to be formed in
order to bring a specification developed outside of OASIS into
the standardization process. (The TC forms and holds one
meeting, the purpose of which is to put the outside spec into
the process as the output of an OASIS TC.) This adds a certain
amount of delay (maximum 45 days) to a decision process that
takes several months anyway.
Resolution: Let it stand. Forty-five days is not too long in
the approval cycle of a real standard, and in any case, the
existence of a TC is assumed in the standardization process for
cases in which comments are received during the voting period.
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Issue 13: Committees not aiming for standardization
Discussion: The question is whether committees not aiming to
produce a standard (i.e., committees working on test suites)
should still have to submit their work for review by the entire
membership.
Resolution: A TC can agree to create something not intended for
standardization. If a test suite takes the form of a
specification, it can be submitted for a vote, but it doesn't
have to be. In designing the process, we deliberately
conflated "standing committees" and "ad hoc committees" so that
TCs could fulfill either role. So there is no requirement that
a TC has to produce input to the standardization process. No
change is needed here.
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Issue 14: Voting by new member organizations
Discussion: To prevent vote stacking, we need to prohibit
organizations that join OASIS during the evaluation period for
a proposed standard from voting on that standard.
Resolution: we recommend that Article 15, "Standards Process,"
be amended by inserting the following new paragraph between the
paragraph beginning "In votes upon proposed OASIS standards"
and the paragraph beginning "The results of a vote on a
proposed standard":
For purposes of this section, "voting OASIS member" shall
include only those members entitled to vote when the
proposed standard is submitted for review. Members joining
OASIS after submission of the proposal for review shall not
be entitled to vote on the proposal and shall not be counted
in determining approval or disapproval of the proposal.
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Issue 15: IPR compliance
Discussion: As we did when we first considered IPR during
design of the TC process, we wish to do everything we can to
prevent companies from participating in standards work in a way
that creates hidden dependencies on their patents or
copyrights. But we keep returning to the facts that (a) the
PAC does not own the IPR policy, which is a creation of the
Board, and (b) it is very difficult to devise a method whereby
OASIS member representatives can testably certify the state of
their knowledge regarding their company's IPR.
Resolution: We recommend that a new item (g) be added to the
checklist of items that must be submitted by a TC when
proposing a standard:
g. A statement from the chair of the TC certifying that all
members of the TC have been provided with a copy of the
OASIS IPR policy.
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Issue 16: Mail lists
Discussion: Two mail lists, a general list and a comment list,
are created for each OASIS TC. The comment list is described
as follows:
The comment list of a TC shall be open to contributions from
every PEOTCP, and may also be enabled to accept comments
from other groups or from the public at large by resolution
of the TC. TCs shall not be required to respond to
comments.
The idea was to create one list open only to members of the TC
and another list that could receive input from a larger
audience but that TC members were not required to read. Since
mail from the comment lists has been forwarded to the general
lists, however, the function of this distinction hasn't been
clear.
Resolutions:
1. We recommend that Karl disable the forwarding from the
comment lists to the general lists so that the system can be
allowed to function as designed.
2. To reduce management overhead in the comment lists, we
should make all comment lists subscribable by the public.
Thus, we recommend that the paragraph cited above be amended
to read as follows:
The comment list of a TC shall be publicly subscribable.
TCs shall not be required to respond to comments.
3. To reduce management overhead in the general lists, we
should make all TC general lists subscribable only by
members of the TC and subscribable by other PEOTCPs only by
formal resolution of the TC.
Existing language:
Every PEOTCP shall be able to subscribe to the general
mailing list of any TC, but only members of that TC shall
be able to post to it. The minutes of each TC meeting
shall be published to that TC's general list.
Amended per this recommendation:
Subscription to the general list shall be automatic for
members of the TC and available, by resolution of the TC,
to other individual PEOTCPs. The minutes of each TC
meeting shall be published to that TC's general list.
[Lauren Wood had to leave the call at this point.]
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Issue 17: Inactive TCs
Discussion: The process allows inactive TCs to stay in
existence for 12-14 months before they are garbage-collected.
On consideration, we don't think that this is a problem; we
should be able to support slow-moving committees, and our
earlier decision to require three active members goes a long
way toward addressing this.
Resolution: No change is needed.
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Issue 18: Subcommittee formation
Discussion: Subcommittee formation is covered by Robert's.
Resolution: No change is needed.
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Issue 19: TC operation
Discussion: The question is whether we need something more that
Robert's to specify committee operation.
Resolution: We really should publish a set of non-normative TC
guidelines. We've been depending on the eventual appearance of
this from the beginning. The combination of Robert's plus the
guidelines should be sufficient. No change to the process is
required.
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Issue 20: The acronym "PEOTCP"
Discussion: The term PEOTCP is defined as follows:
PEOTCP (Person Eligible for OASIS Technical Committee
Participation) -- one of a class of individuals that
includes persons holding individual memberships in the
corporation, employees of organizational members of the
corporation, members of organizations to which OASIS has
extended the benefits of joint membership, and such other
persons as may be designated by the board of directors.
We spent quite a lot of time last year searching for a better
alternative to PEOTCP (e.g., "eligible person"). The problem
is that "eligible person" doesn't convey everything in the
above definition and so would have to be specially defined
anyway, but then many people would not be aware from the
appearance of "eligible person" in the text that the term is
being used in a special way. PEOTCP has at least the virtue of
requiring the reader to look at the definition.
Resolution: No change is needed.
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