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Vote Details

Ballot: Approve WSDM-MUWS and -MOWS v1.0 as OASIS Standards
Company:
Sun Microsystems
Vote:
No
Comment:
The WSDM documents under consideration contain normative references
to seven specification drafts[1] which are still in various stages of
discussion in their respective technical committees, and an indirect
normative reference to a specification[2] which has not yet been submitted
to a standards organization. The current OASIS TC process document[3]
does not provide any mechanism for updating the references to evolving
specifications in a published standard, stating only that "Errata or
Corrigenda to a submission are not permitted; if changes are required
the Committee Draft must be withdrawn by the TC, edited, re-approved as
a Committee Draft, then resubmitted". There is not, and should not be,
a mechanism for getting around this prohibition, which is intended to
ensure that the vote of OASIS members cannot be reversed or upset by a
simple TC vote after the fact.

Normative references in an OASIS standard to volatile specification
drafts is not a practice that is complimentary to OASIS objectives for
"... adoption, application, and implementation of structured information
standards" [4], as such a practice can lead to delay in adoption decisions
and confusion for implementers and adopters where then-current drafts
differ from those cited in the specification, a likely scenario. Further,
the stable specification environment necessary to attain successful
interoperable implementations will be compromised by this confusion.

To best support OASIS objectives all OASIS specifications should strictly
limit normative references to stable specifications that have been
fully approved and published in accordance with the process of their
respective organization.

[1] WS-Addressing, WS-Resource, WS-ResourceProperties, WS-BaseNotification,
WS-Topics, WS-ResourceLifetime, WS-ServiceGroup
[2] WS-Policy, a normative reference in WS-BaseNotification
[3] http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/process.php#standard
[4] http://www.oasis-open.org/who/bylaws/index.php