OASIS Member Discuss

Peter,
 
No system is perfect of course!
 
We do need to strike a balance between someone who is a major
contributor - attends 10 meetings straight - and then has two back to
back trips - so misses 3 meetings out of 4....
 
Perhaps someway of accruing credit points (which of course is
still open to abuse) - based on actual contributions.  But this
stuff is so tough.  For example - I actually value someone who
takes time to read closely a spec' draft, load the XML samples and
check them and then report back that everything is fine.  But
if you look at the document they actually added nothing to it!
 
Somewhere, someone is keeping score it seems... ; -)
 
The real value is from the team.  A well run team produces a
quality product - and the customers should be able to discern that in
the end product - how good the XML itself is - the width of tool
support emerging - open source availability - and the follow-on
occurring.
 
There clearly is way more to turning out a successful specification
and solutions based on that than just fixing the committee approval
process and getting Gartner to approve your marketing materials.
 
Actually I'd argue those who stack committees in this way shoot
themselves in the foot - because slick marketing and rubber stamping
cannot hide the fact that a narrow piece of work based heavily on some
vendors pet solution set - rather than a broad-based concensus solution
with wide buy-in is occurring.
 
I do see that the OASIS comment period is a vital time where issues
can be raised by the membership at large that are tough for a narrowly
focused effort to slough off?

So - are there enough checks and balances out there already? 
Are some of the people fooled all of the time to merit us worrying
about this?
 
I'd almost prefer to actively encourage this behaviour because it is
largely self-defeating in the end!!!  
 
Please do stack your committees and run a shallow process with
minimal broad contributions.  Just globally search and replace in
the specification on /LARGE-CORP/ change to /OASIS-OPEN/ and hit save,
and change the URLs in the XML samples to be http://oasis-open.org  and then
worry that all the help and tutorial links served up by Google point to
www.large-corp.com/support ...
!
 
I'm not sure anyone is really fooled by that for very long.
 
Were you worried about anything else - or is it just raining hard
there again all week?
 
Cheers, DW





                                                

					
                                                    

        
                                                
				
                                                

                                                    
                                                
                                                
                                            
                                        

David (and a couple of others offlist):

appreciate the feedback. I'll admit that any attempt to "reward effort" is
likely to backfire and defeat the purpose it might have been introduced to
defend...at the end of the day, the "peer group pressure" and peer review
pressure are the two most convincing arguments: my rant possibly reflects
the frustrations of being a nearly anonymous individual member who feels
screwed over occasionally by the "big corps" (and, not the ones you might
think) but I guess you pays your money and takes your chances...
That said, I would agree that the issue raised about "TC packing" is likely
to be both marginal in practice (no-one can really afford to put loads of HR
onto a TC) and probably counter-productive if the organisations concerned
are caught "in flagrante"...

Peter

P.S. The weather is fine for the time of year ;-)



                                                

					
                                                    

        
                                                
				
                                                

                                                    
                                                        
                                                        Original Message
                                                
                                                Original Message-----
From: David RR Webber (XML) [mailto:david@drrw.info] 
Sent: 25 October 2006 22:56
To: peter@justbrown.net
Cc: oasis-member-discuss@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: RE: [oasis-member-discuss] Rewarding effort...

Peter,
 
No system is perfect of course!
 
We do need to strike a balance between someone who is a major contributor -
attends 10 meetings straight - and then has two back to back trips - so
misses 3 meetings out of 4....
 
Perhaps someway of accruing credit points (which of course is still open to
abuse) - based on actual contributions.  But this stuff is so tough.  For
example - I actually value someone who takes time to read closely a spec'
draft, load the XML samples and check them and then report back that
everything is fine.  But if you look at the document they actually added
nothing to it!
 
Somewhere, someone is keeping score it seems... ; -)
 
The real value is from the team.  A well run team produces a quality product
- and the customers should be able to discern that in the end product - how
good the XML itself is - the width of tool support emerging - open source
availability - and the follow-on occurring.
 
There clearly is way more to turning out a successful specification and
solutions based on that than just fixing the committee approval process and
getting Gartner to approve your marketing materials.
 
Actually I'd argue those who stack committees in this way shoot themselves
in the foot - because slick marketing and rubber stamping cannot hide the
fact that a narrow piece of work based heavily on some vendors pet solution
set - rather than a broad-based concensus solution with wide buy-in is
occurring.
 
I do see that the OASIS comment period is a vital time where issues can be
raised by the membership at large that are tough for a narrowly focused
effort to slough off?

So - are there enough checks and balances out there already?  Are some of
the people fooled all of the time to merit us worrying about this?
 
I'd almost prefer to actively encourage this behaviour because it is largely
self-defeating in the end!!!  
 
Please do stack your committees and run a shallow process with minimal broad
contributions.  Just globally search and replace in the specification on
/LARGE-CORP/ change to /OASIS-OPEN/ and hit save, and change the URLs in the
XML samples to be http://oasis-open.org  and then worry that all the help
and tutorial links served up by Google point to www.large-corp.com/support
... !
 
I'm not sure anyone is really fooled by that for very long.
 
Were you worried about anything else - or is it just raining hard there
again all week?
 
Cheers, DW