OASIS Technical Committee Process

These are the changes made to the August 2001 version of the OASIS TC Process; these changes are to be approved by the OASIS Board of Directors on 16 September 2002. (This document is non-normative.)

Title

  • Change the title of the document from "Technical Committee Policy" to "Technical Committee Process" to reflect common usage.

Section 1(a) Definitions

  • Change "PEOTCP" to "Eligible Person"
  • Remove the definition for "calendar quarter" which is no longer used.
  • Add definitions for "Committee Specification," "OASIS Standard," "Public," and "Publicly."

Section 1(c) TC Formation

  • Names of TC may not include third party trademarks or service marks.
  • The submitted statement of purpose and list of deliverables cannot be clarified until the first TC meeting.

Section 1(e) TC Membership

  • The TC chair must notify the TC of all membership requests (for the purpose of accountability).

Section 1(f) Termination of TC Membership

  • A person loses his TC membership when he loses his eligibility (i.e. OASIS membership), after the 15 day grace period given in Section 1(e).

Section 1(i) TC Visibility

  • Subscriptions to the TC's general list is required for TC members and is allowed for all Eligible Persons (i.e. OASIS members). The TC chair may prohibit non-TC members from posting to the list.
  • The purpose of the comment list is defined as receiving public comments, and not for public discussion.
  • The TC's web page must be kept current with the TC name, charter, members and officers, IPR statements, etc.

Section 1(j) TC Procedure

  • Contributions to the TC, and work created by the TC, must comply with the OASIS IPR Policy.

Section 1(l) TC Revision

  • The TC can clarify its charter no sooner than the first meeting. Clarifications may be overruled by the TC Administration and must be publicized.

Section 1(m) TC Voting

  • Majority vote is the default.

Section 1(n) Conduct of TC Business by Mail

  • Voting by mail must be conducted on the general TC list (for the purpose of accountability).
  • For the purposes of email voting, quorum is defined as the entire TC membership.

Section 1(o) TC Coordination

  • The purpose of JCs and the requirements for forming a JC have been clarified.

Section 2 Standards Process

  • Before submitting a Committee Specification to OASIS members for review and approval as an OASIS Standard, the TC must conduct a public review of the specification. The submission to OASIS members must include a disposition of the review.
  • The certification of the three implementations includes complying with the OASIS IPR Policy.
  • The time required for the review/voting cycle has been reduced. (This will improve the quality of specifications by reducing the "cost" of withdrawing, fixing, and resubmitting a specification if problems are discovered. Specifications should be "cleaner" upon submission because of the required public review, so will require less time for review by members.)
    • Submissions may be made monthly rather than quarterly.
    • OASIS TC Administration has 15 days, rather than one month, to prepare the submission to go out to members.
    • Members have 15 days to familiarize themselves with the submissions and another 15 days for voting, rather than 90 days plus 30 days.
  • Specifications must be formatted using the OASIS-approved template.
  • Errata to a submission is not allowed; if changes are required the submission must be withdrawn thenresubmitted.

Section 3 Board of Directors Involvement

  • The TC Administrator must notify the Board when a submission has been received to give the Board the opportunity to withhold the submission from voting.

Throughout

Changes for consistency in terminology and capitalization of terms.

 

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