FW: [chairs] OASIS Board approves TC Process changes that address key issues

Please review the revised TC processes. Summaries are 
in the email below, and affected sections are highlighted in the 
attachment.

 

Kathryn Breininger 

 

From: Chet Ensign 
[mailto:] 
Sent: Tuesday, July 31, 2012 7:45 
AM
To: ; ; 

Cc: 
; 

Subject: [chairs] OASIS Board approves TC 
Process changes that address key issues 

OASIS members,
 
As you know, the OASIS TC 
Process, the policy document governing work at OASIS, is a product of your Board 
of Directors. Each July, the Board's Process Committee presents its list of 
proposed changes to the full Board for consideration. Any changes proposed are 
typically in response to issues the Committee has observed or that have been 
brought to the Committee by members. 

This past Wednesday, July 25th, the 
OASIS Board of Directors approved a set of updates that address significant pain 
points we have observed over the past few years. This email gives a short 
summary of the changes. I will hold an online meeting in August to explain them 
in more detail and I will be sending additional documentation in the weeks 
ahead.
 
The updated process takes effect tomorrow, August 1st. The 
changes:

        • Eliminate the need 
for public reviews for non-material content 
changes
        • Allow Statements of Use 
from non-OASIS members
        • Ease the 
process of rechartering
        • Allow 
all TCs to make ballot motions by email without having to adopt standing rules 

        • Clarify how a TC can close a 
sub-committee
        • Clairify that 
documents referenced in a proposed Charter must be publicly 
available.
 
Each of these is discussed below. The attached PDF file 
is line numbered and color highlighted to help you quickly locate the relevant 
sections of the document.
 
1. Eliminate the need for public reviews 
for non-material content changes
 
The current TC Process requires a 
public review even if the changes made to a draft are trivial (for example 
mis-spellings or broken links). This has put TCs in the position of having to 
decide between holding a public review of no value or approving a final document 
with known deficiencies.
 
Under the approved process, a TC will now 
be able to request a Special Majority Vote to approve a Committee Specification 
or Committee Note when the only changes since the last public review are 
non-material. The TC will need to provide a record of the changes made along 
with their motion to proceed with the ballot.
 
In order to ensure 
transparency and accountability, TC Admin will announce such ballots to the 
membership. When the ballot closes, assuming it passes, the draft will be 
published as a Committee Specification or Committee Note. Note that should any 
OASIS member object that some of the changes are indeed material, the ballot 
will stop and the TC will need to do another public review. 

Based on my 
experience this past year, I expect this to reduce the number of public reviews 
by as much as 25%. Even better, it will enable you to make  those last 
finishing touches that will improve the quality of your final deliverables 
without incurring any process penalty.
 
See line 76 for the 
definition of “non-material change” and lines 670 through 697 for the 
description of the new approval process.
 
2.  Allow Statements 
of Use from non-OASIS members
 
Statements of Use are required before 
a Committee Specification can be presented to the OASIS members for 
consideration as a Candidate OASIS Standard. The current TC Process requires 
that all Statements of Use come from OASIS members. For some TCs this has posed 
a barrier to advancing their work because the TC is small and most 
implementations have been done outside OASIS.
 
Under the approved 
process, a TC will be allowed to accept up to two of the three required 
Statements of Use from non-OASIS members.
 
See line 139 for the new 
definition of “Statement of Use” and line 706 for the change to the submission 
requirement.
 
3. Rechartering is now easier

Under the current 
TC Process, rechartering a TC has required starting a new Kavi group, giving the 
TC a new name abbreviation and closing the TC for an extended period of time. 

 
Under the approved process, the TC will keep its existing Kavi 
resources, mailing list, document archive, etc. The TC will be able to continue 
working under the original charter up to the week before the first meeting under 
the new charter at which time members will need to rejoin the TC. Rechartering 
will be far less disruptive to the TC's work schedule. 
 
See line 
437 for the new description of rechartering.
 
4. Standing rules to 
allow ballot motions by email no longer must be adopted as standing 
rules
 
Under the current TC Process, if a TC wishes to allow motions 
to open electronic ballots to be made by email, the TC must adopt a standing 
rule allowing this.
 
Under the approved TC Process, this is now 
standard practice and is available to all TCs with no special 
action.
 
See line 480 for the new text allowing 
this.
 
5. Clarification on closing TC 
sub-committees
 
The current TC Process is silent on how a TC closes 
a sub-committee. The approved TC Process clarifies that this may be done by 
resolution of the TC.
 
See line 489 for the new 
text.
 
5.  Documents referenced in a proposed Charter must be 
publicly available.
 
This change clarifies that if a document is 
referenced in a proposed TC Charter, it must be available from a public source. 
Note that this does not mean that it must be available by a hypertext link, but 
simply that there must be some public source through which interested parties 
may obtain copies.
 
See line 195 for the revised 
text.
 
I hope you find these changes help you work in OASIS more 
effectively. Please let me know if you have questions on these changes and what 
they will mean in practice.

/chet 
----------------
Chet 
Ensign
Director of Standards Development and TC Administration 
OASIS: 
Advancing open standards for the information society
http://www.oasis-open.org

Primary: 
+1 973-996-2298
Mobile: +1 
201-341-1393

Attachment:
TC-Process-v1.0-Final.pdf

Description: TC-Process-v1.0-Final.pdf