Peter,
No system is perfect of course!
We do need to strike a balance between someone who is a major
contributor - attends 10 meetings straight - and then has two back to
back trips - so misses 3 meetings out of 4....
Perhaps someway of accruing credit points (which of course is
still open to abuse) - based on actual contributions. But this
stuff is so tough. For example - I actually value someone who
takes time to read closely a spec' draft, load the XML samples and
check them and then report back that everything is fine. But
if you look at the document they actually added nothing to it!
Somewhere, someone is keeping score it seems... ; -)
The real value is from the team. A well run team produces a
quality product - and the customers should be able to discern that in
the end product - how good the XML itself is - the width of tool
support emerging - open source availability - and the follow-on
occurring.
There clearly is way more to turning out a successful specification
and solutions based on that than just fixing the committee approval
process and getting Gartner to approve your marketing materials.
Actually I'd argue those who stack committees in this way shoot
themselves in the foot - because slick marketing and rubber stamping
cannot hide the fact that a narrow piece of work based heavily on some
vendors pet solution set - rather than a broad-based concensus solution
with wide buy-in is occurring.
I do see that the OASIS comment period is a vital time where issues
can be raised by the membership at large that are tough for a narrowly
focused effort to slough off?
So - are there enough checks and balances out there already?
Are some of the people fooled all of the time to merit us worrying
about this?
I'd almost prefer to actively encourage this behaviour because it is
largely self-defeating in the end!!!
Please do stack your committees and run a shallow process with
minimal broad contributions. Just globally search and replace in
the specification on /LARGE-CORP/ change to /OASIS-OPEN/ and hit save,
and change the URLs in the XML samples to be http://oasis-open.org and then
worry that all the help and tutorial links served up by Google point to
www.large-corp.com/support ...
!
I'm not sure anyone is really fooled by that for very long.
Were you worried about anything else - or is it just raining hard
there again all week?
Cheers, DW
-------- Original Message --------
Subject:
[oasis-member-discuss] Rewarding effort...
From: "Peter F Brown"
<>
Date: Wed, October 25, 2006 1:49
pm
To: <>
I
must admit, I always thought there was a principle of one organisation,
one vote so it's a bit of a shock to learn otherwise.
I write as
an individual member who has been active in the complete cycle of
developing an OASIS standard. I already accept - albeit grudgingly -
that the big corporate sponsor members get a bigger say (more publicity
and profile in press releases and announcements of important TC
milestones) than ordinary company members; and that ordinary companies
and organisations get a bigger say (voting for the Board, at AGMs, etc)
than us individual members.
The scenario in which companies enrol
to a TC en masse just a couple of meetings before a key milestone (such
as adopting a spec) really sucks. I have seen names of individuals and
companies on the list of "participants" for a spec whom I have never
heard of or seen anywhere during the process. A typical TCs work will
be carried by a dedicated group of individuals (with the support of
their companies or through individual doggedness). It is already
irksome that sponsor members can trumpet their "participation" in
developing a standard or spec. (and have that reinforced by OASIS press
releases etc) just by keeping a voting member status on a TC but without
having to do a stroke of work, while often individual members (funding
their own participation and costs - travel and conf call fees, usually
to a US number) get no profile or recognition, except their name on the
spec.
In the work in which I've been involved, I have not noticed
an excessive "packing" of TCs by large numbers of people from some
organisation members, so maybe I've been lucky but I would say if that
had happened on any TC of which I was an active member, I would have
become very quickly annoyed if all they do is show up for the roll-call
and then disappear without a trace. If people want to join a TC to work,
they should be welcome.
I would therefore prefer:
- no change
to the number of people who can join as voting members, BUT a change to
the eligibility criteria for maintaining voting level
membership.
This could include (some combination of):
- a higher
participation threshold: two consecutive meetings is not enough,
particularly towards the end of the lifecycle of a particular piece of
work; maybe four consecutive meetings and/or 90 days, once a TC has
published a first draft of a proposed spec?;
- give more credit to
contributors: if a TC member has contributed some piece of work, or is
a co-chair, secretary or editor of a proposed spec, the threshold
should be lower;
- requiring "substantive contribution" at a meeting
to be considered as present for the purposes of voting eligibility: this
is certainly controversial and could be subjective, but I think an
approach to solving this made in good faith would lead to some
solution, particularly for conf call meetings. At present, just be
there for the roll-call every meeting and then hang-up and you're
credited with being a voting member and as being a contributor to any
spec or standard developed. Easy...but very unfair on those who do the
work;
- more credit should be given to people who get off their
behinds and attend F2F TC meetings!;
I'd be interested in
comments about changing the eligibility criteria
Best
regards,
Peter
-------------
Peter F Brown
Chair,
CEN eGovernment Focus Group
Founder, Pensive.eu
Co-Editor, OASIS
SOA Reference Model
Lecturer at XML Summer
School
---
Personal:
http://public.xdi.org/=Peter.Brown
www.XMLbyStealth.net
www.xmlsummerschool.com
