Hi
Mary and everyone,
It's
been an interesting past few weeks. Below I've tried to summarize some
*potential* issues in publishing OASIS guides to technologies. Not all of these
apply to any discussions we've had about this particular guide, however I think
it is useful to put them on the table as hypothetical issues for purposes of
formulating and clarifying OASIS's general policies on the publishing of
technology guides under its name.
-
The public might perceive that the products associated with subcommittee TC
members are given more prominence than the products of non-members, and
consider OASIS to be less credible as a result.
-
Vendors whose products have not been included in the guide might complain that
they didn't receive adequate notice about the fact that the document was being
written, and didn't have a fair chance to have their products considered for
inclusion.
-
Useful information about a product might be omitted from a guide in order to
make it more palatable to the product vendor who holds a vote on whether to
accept or reject the guide.
-
Claims about a particular product may turn out to be false advertising. If
false advertising appears in content published by OASIS, who is responsible for
it?
-
Is it a good use of TC time and energy to try to evaluate a technology guide
written by a subcommittee?
-
Can a TC provide a meaningful approval of a technology guide written by a
subcommittee if TC members do not have access to some of technologies described
in the guide?
Again,
not all of these issues have come up in the discussion about this particular
guide, but these are the types of things that I think are useful to put on the
table for purpose of formulating OASIS policy.
I
also want to echo Kris Eberlein’s sentiment appreciating the effort that
has been put into this guide so far by Help SC members. Much of the information
the Help SC has produced is useful to the public; the question we are trying to
address is if and how the OASIS name should be associated with it.
Best
regards,
Su-Laine
Su-Laine Yeo
Interaction Design Specialist
JustSystems Canada, Inc.
Office: 778-327-6356
www.justsystems.com
From: Bruce Nevin
(bnevin) [mailto:]
Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2009 11:34 AM
To: Michael Priestley;
Cc: ; ;
Subject: RE: [dita] Re: Meeting Request: Issues About OASIS and
OASIS-Approved Publications
Where angels fear ...
Since my organization is a DITA adopter rather than potential
competitor in the vendor space serving adopters, maybe I can dare to be a bit
more forthright.
Representatives of member organizations meet on committees and
subcommittees in a cooperative spirit to establish standards, guidelines, etc.
to the mutual benefit of all.
Might another organization enter such a committee (or view its work
and membership from the outside) and construe that cooperative spirit as
collusion among an anti-competitive cabal?
Surely in the full breadth of OASIS such issues have arisen before
and been addressed. As one possible approach, is "mutual
benefit" defined in the broadest sense somewhere in the OASIS
umbrella such that no one can construe it in a narrow, exclusionary sense, and
can a TC or SC point to that umbrella definition should the issue arise?
/Bruce Nevin
From: Michael Priestley [mailto:]
Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2009 2:01 PM
To:
Cc: ; ;
Subject: Re: [dita] Re: Meeting Request: Issues About OASIS and
OASIS-Approved Publications
Hi Stan,
To clarify, I
don't think anyone suggested that an OASIS member organization would sue
another OASIS member organization. The question was, are there any concerns
about a group of OASIS member organizations writing about the products of other
companies (or writing about some products but not others, for that matter).
So much for not
characterizing the issues in writing :-) But I wanted to correct the
characterization of the chit-chat anyway.
Michael
Priestley, Senior Technical Staff Member (STSM)
Lead IBM DITA Architect
http://dita.xml.org/blog/25
03/18/2009
01:23 PM
To
cc
,
Subject
Re:
[dita] Re: Meeting Request: Issues About OASIS and OASIS-Approved
Publications
Hi Mary --
Spring is in the air. With chit-chat about OASIS member organizations being
open to suing other OASIS member organizations and OASIS individual members, it
may not be prudent for any individual to characterize the issues in writing
(hence the intentional vagueness in my previous email).
Perhaps the best course would be to have the TC next Tuesday
"approve" the minutes of our meeting yesterday, thereby providing an
appropriate starting place for defining the issues pertinent to the meeting
that we'd like to organize with you.
Sorry ... I wish that it were as simple as summarizing the explicit points of
debate.
Stan
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mary McRae"
To:
Cc: ,
Subject: [dita] Re: Meeting Request: Issues About OASIS and OASIS-Approved
Publications
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2009 00:12:04 -0400
Hi Stan,
It would be most helpful if you could provide the list of issues in
advance so I can make sure to have the right people involved - once I have a
better idea I can look at schedules and see what will work for everyone.
Regards,
Mary
On Tue, Mar 17, 2009 at 8:34 PM, <>
wrote:
Hi Mary --
In the process of reviewing the DITA Help Technologies Guide (attached), the
DITA Technical Committee bumped into some issues -- some potentially legal --
that are beyond the scope of our TC. We suspect (and hope) that other TCs or
working groups in OASIS have encountered and resolved such issues.
We are hoping that you could set up a concall next week with you and with the
following DITA people:
-
-
- Micheal Priestley
- Don Day
- Stan Doherty
Two goals for the meeting --
1. Review the issues.
2. Identify from the OASIS side of things possible precedents, resources, and
solution strategies
Thanks,
Stan Doherty
--
Mary P McRae
Manager of TC Administration, OASIS
voip: 603.232.9090
