Re: [office] Lists - please read

[robert_weir@us.ibm.com]

+1

-Rob
___________________________

Rob Weir
Software Architect
Workplace, Portal and Collaboration Software
IBM Software Group

email: robert_weir@us.ibm.com
phone: 1-978-399-7122
blog: http://www.robweir.com/blog/

Michael.Brauer@Sun.COM wrote on 03/30/2007 08:55:46
AM:

> Dear TC members,
> 
> first of all I would like to ask for your apologies for this rather
long 
> mail, but I think the complexity of this topics requires this. This
mail 
> contains a proposal how to proceed. If you are interested in only
that, 
> you may skip this mail until you find a heading that indicates the
start 
> of this proposal.
> 
> As discussed in the last con call, a discussion about backward 
> compatibility guidelines has been started. I think this is very helpful.
> We should continue this discussion, but I suggest to exclude all list
> related questions from this discussion, because these guidelines have
a 
> validity not only for lists. I will put the backward compatibility
topic 
> on the agenda of our call for Monday. Maybe we are able to agree on
> something in the call, but I think this is not essential for continuing
> the list discussions.
> 
> The backwards compatibility guidelines will be helpful in our list
> discussions, because they will provide the authors of the list proposals
> with information what is requested by the TC (or individual TC members),
> and they will provide all others with some guidelines that may have
to 
> be considered than analyzing the proposals. However, I don't think
that 
> the guidelines alone will be sufficient to come to an unambiguous
> conclusion whether a certain proposal would be acceptable.
> 
> One other issue we have is that the two proposals we have currently
are 
> very different in the style they are written, and in the style how
they 
> are explained. This makes it actually very difficult to compare them
> without doing a very deep analysis of the two proposals. That's 
> something we need to address, too. Unfortunately, we have not much
time 
> left to come to a conclusion, and we will not have a TC call between
the 
> 2nd, and the 23th of April. For this reason, I suggest that we do
not 
> wait until we have backward compatibility guidelines before addressing
> this issue, but to work on these two tasks in parallel. More precisely,
> I would like to propose the following roadmap for our discussions:
> 
> Roadmap Proposal
> ----------------
> 
> We reset our discussions, meaning that we assume that no proposals
have 
> been submitted to the TC. We further continue our discussions about
> backward compatibility. The authors of the list proposals are asked
to 
> follow these discussions closely, and shall based on these discussions
> decide until April, the 5th COB, whether they want to submit a proposal
> to the TC.
> 
> If a TC member wants to submit a proposal, then this proposal must
meet 
> the following formal requirements:
> 1. It must be submitted the the TC's document repository so that it
can 
> be easily and unambiguously located.
> 2. It must contain the literal text that should be added to the 
> specification, and also the text that should be removed. In other
words, 
> it must be identifiable what exactly is changed in the specification,
> and what will be the resulting text if the proposals gets accepted.
> 3. Explanatory text must be differentiable from the proposed text
for 
> the specification. In other words, it must be identifiable what text
is 
> added to the specification, and what text is only explanatory.
> 4. Where possible, the changes should be explained by examples that
show 
> what ODF does (or does not) allow now and how the proposal would change
> that.
> 
> Proposals must be submitted to the TC until April, the 5th COB, which
> means it has to be worked on them in parallel to the backward 
> compatibility guidelines. That's not the best situation, but I think
our 
> schedule does not allow another solution if we want to have some buffer
> time, which I think we should have.
> 
> After the proposals have been submitted, and if we get multiple 
> proposals, then the proposers get a chance to prepare an analysis
of how 
> they think their proposal differs from the other proposal technically
> and why. This should be a single document. The aim of this analysis
> shall not be to advertise the own proposal, but to explain to the
TC 
> members what the differences between the proposal are, and to figure
out 
> whether the two proposals maybe could be combined, what of cause still
> would be the best solution. The due date for this is Friday, April
the 
> 13th COB.
> 
> If we still have two proposals, then the proposers should get a chance
> to comment the analysis. This again should be a single document. Due
> date for this is Wednesday, April the 18th COB.
> 
> In the TC call at April the 23th, we may either vote on the proposal(s),
> or agree to conduct an e-mail ballot. To give everyone a fair chance
to 
> follow the discussions, a discussion of the list topic that goes beyond
> the preparation of document's mentioned should be avoided.
> 
> If a TC member cannot meet one of the due date but wishes to submit
a 
> document to the TC, then she or he should inform the TC as soon as
> possible, but in any case before the due date. This information should
> contain the date until the document will be submitted.
> 
> We stay with this plan and schedule/roadmap, except that the TC formally
> makes some other decision.
> 
> I would like to propose that we formally agree on this procedure in
our 
> con call on Monday.
> 
> Best regards
> 
> Michael
> -- 
> Michael Brauer, Technical Architect Software Engineering
> StarOffice/OpenOffice.org
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