A message from Board Candidate Howard Shao

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Subject: A message from Board Candidate Howard Shao




From: "Scott McGrath" <>
To: <>
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 12:10:22 -0400














Voting reps,

Howard Shao has
submitted the following replies to our Member questions for your review. 
Unfortunately, this information was not available to be included when the
ballot and candidate documents were posted.  Please give his replies
careful consideration as you do all other candidate’s replies, available
at http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/voting/download.php/3869/questionairre.html.

A web based version of this
candidate information will reside on the Organizational Voting group document
list. http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/voting/download.php/3932/shao_questionairre.html


 



Scott…



 

Question 1:

Do you feel that the current
OASIS IPR Policy is adequate for the consortium? If not, what would you change
in the current policy? Should OASIS adopt an IPR policy similar to W3C's? Why?

There is no
easy answer for IPR Policy. The OASIS IPR Policy currently follows the spirit
of OASIS Technical Committees which has allowed OASIS to grow as an
organization and spur important standards development. If OASIS did attempt to
implement a stricter IPR Policy it could be difficult to enforce and it may
also potentially limit important standardization work. I believe OASIS should
promote wide adoption and accessibility to standards as much as possible and
should discourage any obvious abuse of the standardization process. Encouraging
disclosures and listing them clearly, is one step that OASIS has taken that is
extremely beneficial to OASIS members and the community at large, but the more
that can be done in this area the better.

A lot of hard
work went into determining the IPR Policy for the W3C, but I recognize that
OASIS is a different organization. There are many common members across both
organizations, if the OASIS Board and Organization feels it can implement such a
process, I would recommend that they put it to the membership for a vote.

Question 2:

Do you think OASIS should work
to better optimize the liaisons of OASIS and its Member Sections and TCs to
other standards organizations in order to better align (partly) overlapping
efforts? How?

At the end of
day the industry would like a clear stack of standards that build on top of
each other and work together.

OASIS should do all that it can
to facilitate this occurring by:

·        
Having
reciprocal membership with other standard organizations 

·        
Facilitating
and promoting cross participation in related activities both within and beyond
OASIS. 

·        
Where feasible
introducing recommendations for base standards to be used in new work developed
by TCs. 

This is not to say that
technical committees should be prevented from starting new work - as with all
architectural projects certain components can be improved upon and evolved, and
they may need to address slightly different problem spaces. However, wherever
possible OASIS should attempt to gain industry alignment while still supporting
innovation and its open process.

Question 3:

What is your position on the
flexibility of OASIS' process with regard to the formation of TCs? Do you think
that there should be a means to avoid duplicate efforts (both within OASIS and
related to other organizations)? If so, how should this be accomplished?

As mentioned
above, I believe OASIS should strive for a balance between innovation and
alignment. Where possible OASIS should attempt to gain industry alignment but
should not prevent the formation of new TC's. OASIS should encourage duplicate
efforts to align or at least liaise with each other - there have been a number
of successful examples of this in the last two years. The TAB could facilitate
identifying similar efforts if required.

OASIS could
also take a more proactive approach to the formation of TCs - by gathering
feedback from the membership for areas that should be tackled and encouraging
the early formation of TCs and industry alignment.

Question 4:

The OASIS current mission
statement includes helping to 'drive the ... adoption of e-Business standards'.
Do you believe that this is an appropriate role for OASIS? Does e-Business
adequately define our space? Should we be doing more to foster adoption and
implementation of specs and standards produced at OASIS? If so, what specific
recommendations should we pursue?

Standards are
only useful in the end if they are adopted. The standards work at OASIS is very
broad from core Horizontal technology standards to Vertical initiatives - I
believe that this is an appropriate role for OASIS, and that e-Business is an
encompassing definition of the space.

OASIS has been
growing rapidly over the last few years - and much of the work has only
recently been standardized. As with any organization, there are a number of
things that OASIS will need to do over the next few years to ensure it can
scale appropriately and also ensure it has sufficient processes for dealing
with the "post-standardization" phase. This will be critical to
support adoption of these specifications. OASIS has done a good job improving
infrastructure over the last year.

Some potential
areas OASIS may consider: 

·        
Ensure
adequate infrastructure to support the TCs and the technical process. 

·        
Support for
ensuring quality of standards - templates, writing guidelines and editorial
support 

·        
Guidelines for
maintenance of Standards (bugs, backward-compatibility.) 

·        
Promote the
use of OASIS standards in new work being developed in OASIS and other standard
bodies. 

·        
Encourage
implementations of the standards in products. 

·        
Encourage the
development of white-papers, books, and other educational and marketing
material. 

When standards
have been developed with industry alignment, based on end-user demand
(horizontal and/or vertical) and are of good quality - adoption will be natural
and rapid. This is what OASIS should strive for.

Question 5:

What should OASIS do to get more
end-user and international companies involved - especially in the requirements
definition and in implementation activities?

A number of
end-user or vertical consortia are attempting to create their own XML/Web
Services standards. OASIS should attempt to get more verticals to do this work
within or in association with OASIS and also more closely align vertical and
horizontal activities.

This will
provide benefits to all:

·        
XML/Web
Services Expertise to combine with the domain knowledge of the vertical
organizations 

·        
Ensure that
the horizontal technologies are developed to meet the needs of the vertical
applications 

·        
Provide a
ready market for adoption of these standards 

Some
international activities can also be treated like vertical initiatives.
However, if OASIS is serious about international growth it needs to provide
basic support such as translations, potentially by forming affiliations with
local organizations.

 


















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