Re: [oasis-charter-discuss] Proposed Charter for OASIS Identity inthe Clouds TC

Title: Re: [oasis-charter-discuss] Proposed Charter for OASIS Identity in the Clouds TC

The Chair of the OASIS PSTC also concurs.

There are other standardization efforts for cloud computing, like OAuth WRAP in the IETF (to name but one), that are trying to address specific needs and use-cases.  It's my opinion that the work of TCs should be quite concrete.  Technical committees should be founded with a specific set of problems in mind, preferably and most often with one or more proposed specifications that already address those problems.

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Kent Spaulding | CTO

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On 2/21/10 2:51 PM, "Mason, Howard (UK)" <> wrote:

Co-Chair of OASIS PLCS TC concurs.

Development of standards needs to be done against one or more use cases.

These cases can then be used to promote the solutions as solving actual

problems.  The US and European aerosapce and defence industries use a

similar approach when selecting standards for industry-wide recommended

adoption - I co-chair the standards strategy groups in both trade

associations and would welcome a clear proposal for action, especially

taken into consideration against major existing efforts such as TSCP

(Transglobal Secure Collaboration Program)

Howard Mason

Corporate IT Office

Tel: +44 1252 383129

Mob: +44 780 171 3340

Eml: 

BAE Systems plc

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-----Original Message-----

From: Patrick Durusau [mailto:]

Sent: 21 February 2010 22:31

To: 

Subject: [oasis-charter-discuss] Proposed Charter for OASIS Identity in

the Clouds TC

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Greetings!

The original charter for this TC appears at:

http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/oasis-charter-discuss/201001/msg000

00.html

and my original comments:

http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/oasis-charter-discuss/201001/msg000

03.html.

To its credit, the charter now has support from both IBM and Microsoft,

so we are only missing Amazon, Google and Oracle, to name a few of the

other major players in *cloud* computing.

Remaining/recurrent issues include (I haven't tried to be exhaustive):

1) OASIS TC proposals should not invent confusing terminology in any

standards area. For example, there isn't any "Identity in the Clouds"

technical effort anywhere in known space. There are standards being

developed for *cloud* computing and questions of identity in the

*cloud.*

The name of this TC and its charter are noise pollution in an important

area of computing.

2) OASIS TC proposals should propose the development of *standards* to

address known issues. It is inappropriate to propose a charter with no

known purpose or target for its effort, other than to go "gap hunting"

through other standards efforts. From the description in the charter, it

bears a strong resemblance to a "snipe hunt." (On which see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snipe_hunt)

3) An OASIS TC isn't necessary to find and communicate "gaps" noticed in

Identity Management protocols. Email to the authors of those protocols

would suffice.

4) Unless other standards efforts have designated the proposed TC as the

arbiter of terms and their definitions, the goal to "harmonize

definitions/terminologies/vocabulary of Identity in the context of Cloud

Computing" seems unlikely to be successful. Particularly since this

effort starts with fanciful invention of terms in the area.

Let's cut to the chase. This is a TC to go hunting for a standard or

perhaps not, to write.

Why not develop one or more use cases that illustrate a gap in existing

standards, create or have a proposal to create a standard or profile to

address that gap and then form a TC?

What is so hard about that?

It would have a defined scope, a meaningful description of a projected

work product, a description that could entice others into joining the

work, a place to fit into the larger panoply of standards in the area,

in short all the things one expects of a standards TC and its work

product.

As I said in my original comments, this is an *important* area of

computing. It is an area where OASIS should be encouraging the formation

of *useful* TCs to address known issues. Forming TCs to go "gap hunting"

in existing or new areas of computing technology does not reflect well

on OASIS and by extension its members.

Let's not embarrass ourselves by forming a TC that has no clear purpose

or goal.

Hope everyone is at the start of a great week!

Patrick

PS: I am a member of the OASIS Technical Advisory Board (TAB) but this

posting does not reflect any official view of the TAB or OASIS.

--

Patrick Durusau



Chair, V1 - US TAG to JTC 1/SC 34

Convener, JTC 1/SC 34/WG 3 (Topic Maps)

Editor, OpenDocument Format TC (OASIS), Project Editor ISO/IEC 26300

Co-Editor, ISO/IEC 13250-1, 13250-5 (Topic Maps)

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