OSLC StC and TCs,
We are excited by the possibility of transitioning the OSLC Member Section and TCs to an Open Project.Â
Our answers to your questions are in red below. We're happy to discuss on or in advance of the StC call on Jan 21.
On Mon, Dec 17, 2018 at 1:13 PM Jim Amsden <> wrote:
The OASIS OSLC Membership
Steering Committee (StC) proposes to migrate the current OASIS OSLC standardization
activities to a new OASIS OSLC Open Project. The purposes of this
migration are to:
* Engage a broader
community in OSLC technical work by allowing participation and contribution
from non-members without incurring dues or fees
* Increase OSLC
adoption by encouraging more contribution, awareness and users
* Provide a context
in which to develop related work products including open source reference
implementations, sample applications, and other collateral that expand
and complement the OASIS Standards track documents
* Simplify the
infrastructure and processes for developing OASIS Standards
* Reduce fragmentation
in the OSLC community by providing a central, world wide, respected organization
in which to develop OSLC related work products
Specifically,
the StC proposes the following:
1. Utilize the
current StC members to form the initial OSLC Project Governing Board (PGB),
retaining the current chair
2. The current
Core and Domains TC members are merged and become the initial OSLC Technical
Steering Committee, retaining the current chairs and cochairs.
3. The existing
OSLC Core and Domains GitHub repositories will be migrated as is to the
OSLC Open Project
4. The existing
OSLC4JS project will also be migrated to the OSLC Open Project and will
provide a code base that establishes a Statement of Use of the OSLC Standards
and a code base for exploring and validating proposed changes to the standards
5. The existing
eclipse/Lyo Open Source project at eclipse.org will remain unchanged in
order to leverage the eclipse governance process and Type B due diligence.
This proposal
is subject to approval by the StC, with the decision scheduled to be addressed
at the next StC meeting, Jan 21, 2019.
In order to facilitate
the decision process, the StC would like clarification on the following
questions.
1. What exactly
are the Open Project fees and who pays them?
Open Project fees are used to fund core services provided by OASIS (legal, technical, and fiscal administration, basic marketing support, etc.).
Unlike OASIS TCs (which are funded by inclusive OASIS membership dues and where dues are required for technical participation), each Open Project is funded by fees paid by its own sponsoring organizations (we're calling these "Project Backers"). The funding provided by Project Backers enables anyone in the community to participate technically without paying dues.
Basic Project Backer fees are paid annually. The fees are scaled, based on the organizationâs employee headcount:
Â$ 25,000: 2,000+ employees
Â$ 15,000: 500-1,999 employees
Â$ 10,000: 100-499 employees
Â$ Â5,000: 10-99 employees
Â$ Â2,000: <10 employees
Â$ Â1,000: Nonprofit, university, local or non-OECD government
Project Backer organizations each receive a seat on the Project Governing Board (PGB) as well as exclusive visibility and promotional benefits.
For OSLC... if the StC and TCs decide in January to form the Open Project (in time for inclusion in OASISâ program roll-out in late March), OASIS will waive the Backer fees for the organizations that are represented on the current OSLC MS StC for the foreseeable future, provided that those companies retain their OASIS Foundational Sponsor, Sponsor, or Contributor memberships.
Organizations not represented on the current OSLC MS StC will be able to become OSLC Backers by paying the annual fees listed above.
Note: This offer covers core services provided by OASIS. If the OSLC PGB determines the need for supplemental activities (code auditing, event hosting, consultants, etc.), then additional funding will be required. OASIS staff will work with the OSLC PGB to determine its funding requirements and how to best meet them.
1.1. What are
the startup and annual fees for an Open Project?
1.2. It is our
understanding that the PGC requires a minimum threshold in annual sponsorship
commitments by OASIS member companies. What is this minimum threshold?
Normally, OASIS requires new projects to identify commitments of at least $25,000 in annual Project Backers fees and at least two organizations for its PGB before it can be launched.
Current OASIS OSLC members will enjoy the fee waiver noted above, but still will need to have at least two organizations on its PGB. These may be either current MS StC organizations (holding OASIS Foundational, Sponsor, or Contributors membership) or new organizations that pay the annual OSLC Project Backer fee.
Â
1.3. What are
OASIS members of the PGC expected to contribute to the Open Project fees?
Current OSLC MS organizations are not expected to contribute additional funding for the foreseeable future to cover the core services provided by OASIS. If the OSLC PGB decides supplemental activities/services are needed, fees may be necessary.
Â
1.4. What is the
relationship between the OASIS member dues and Open Project fees?
That is, if an
OASIS member company participates in many Open Projects that develop different
OASIS Standards, will the member company have to pay OASIS membership fees
as well as additional fees for each Open Project for which they are PGC
members?
Technically, thereâs no relationship between OASIS membership and Open Project sponsorship. Each Open Project is funded by its own Project Backers. Â
In special cases, we may offer OASIS members a reduced or waived fee to become Project Backers for specific Open Projects (e.g., our current offering to OSLC MS members).
1.5. What happens
of the member participation in the PGC falls below the minimum threshold,
but there is still ongoing work by the Technical Steering Committee in
the open source and/or specification deliverables?
The OP program is designed to gracefully degrade in such cases. If the OP no longer has at least two Project Backers:
OASIS will continue to provide free public access to the project's deliverables in perpetuity.
The project's repositories remain open. Contributions and comments may be accepted, and successor Maintainers may be appointed.
The project will no longer receive facilitation or other services from OASIS.
The repoâs content wonât continue to be eligible for approval as Project Specifications or advanced through the OASIS standards track.
Â
2. What are the
rules for non-member participants, contributors, maintainers and PGB members?
2.1. Do non-members
of either the Technical Steering Committee or Project Governing Board have
voting rights?
Â
In keeping with common open source practices, Open Projects rules allow most decisions to be made by group consensus.
Members of the PGB approve major governance and advancement actions via ballot when needed.
Members of the Technical Steering Committee (TSC) are free to determine how to manage achieving consensus; voting is not required.
Â
2.2. How are these
voting rights calculated? At the discretion of the PGB?
Decisions are made on the PGB by one-org/one-vote. Each Project Backer organization has one seat on the PGB. Â
TSC members are selected for their technical contributions to the project, regardless of whether or not they are employed by Project Backers. This gives the project another opportunity for inclusive leadership.
2.3. Do all voting
members have to sign the CLA (even if they don't contribute content)?
All PGB members must sign the CLA regardless of whether or not they contribute content. Â
3. Regarding Legal
entity, oversight, management of IP and licensing agreements, trademarks
and copyrights: Specifically what services will OASIS provide in order
to assess the IP of Open Project work products, including dependencies
on components outside the project?
For example, open
source projects often have dependencies on other open source projects.
In order to assess IP exposure, it is typically necessary to examine all
direct and transitive dependencies to ensure there are no licensing issues.
This often requires code scans to detect potential issues. Will OASIS provide
these services?
Upon request from a PGB, OASIS will contract with a third-party to provide code scan services. OASIS will work with the PGB to identify the provider and scope of service that best meets their projectâs needs.
Code scans are not included in the core services provided by OASIS for all Open Projects. The cost to provide this service will have to be covered by supplemental funding (e.g. fees for Project Backers).
If OSLC requires code scans, let us know as soon as possible. OASIS will work with the StC to determine specific needs, evaluate service provider options, and agree on how the cost will be covered.
4. Will the current
OSLC TC GitHub repos, wikis and issues be migrated as is to the new open
project?
Yes (assuming participants agree to re-contribute them). When the outgoing license is royalty-free, and the selected incoming FOSS license is reasonably permissive, itâs an easy ask from the participants. This is made even easier when a known, stable group is involved, as is the case with OSLC.
Â
4.1. Will there
be any impact on existing TC work products?
Not on the TC-approved versions. Once a published OASIS Committee Specification, always a published OASIS Committee Specification.
Â
4.2. Will the
open project specification template be different than what is currently
being used by the OSLC TCs, and automated through ReSpec? We are trying
to minimize spec rework and ReSpec updates.
Specification templates for Open Project work are based on the current TC templates. While there will be some labeling differences, rework will be minimal.
Â
4.3. The Open
Project specification lifecycle appears to require statements of use before
public review. What are the implications for OSLC Domain and Core TC documents
that are already in progress?
Open Projects Specifications only require public reviews and Statements of Use when they move forward as Candidate OASIS Standards (in the same way a TC would proceed). SoU are not required for a public review. Migrating to Open Projects should have little effect on existing work. ÂÂÂ
4.4. Are there
any changes in how Open Project standards track work products are published
by OASIS?
Specifically I'm
trying to understand if the issue we had with document relative links being
broken by the OASIS publishing process will be resolved by migrating to
an Open Project so that we don't have do the work to modify ReSpec to fix
up links on document publish.
The specifics on this are TBD, but we are confident we can work out an arrangement where the canonical standard lives on the OP repo with a backup verified copy on docs.oasis-open.org.
5. What are the
hosting constraints and any additional costs associated with utilizing
the Open Project Web site?
We have just deployed
a new open-servicers.net site. This site was developed using HUGO (https://gohugo.io).
Can we continue using this technology and URL for the Open Project web
site? Note that it is necessary to preserve the open-service.net domain
since the OSLC namespaces utilize this domain name for backward compatibility
and access to machine readable vocabulary documents.
Details on this will require investigation, but we donât expect a problem. We will want to add boilerplate text and minimal branding to the site, and some kind of linking or mirroring so that material cross-references into OASIS resources. Staying with this current infrastructure and URLs will make life easier for all of us.
Jim Amsden, Senior
Technical Staff Member
OSLC and Linked Lifecycle
Data
919-525-6575
--
Carol Geyer
Chief Development Officer
Open Source and Standards Communities
OASIS
