1. Overview
2. Participation
3. Planning
4. Promotion
5. Expenses
6. Additional requirements for Interop Demos and Plugfests only
7. Additional requirements for Interop Demos only
8. Additional provisions

1. Overview

This Policy governs the planning and execution of OASIS Interoperability Demonstrations, Showcases, and Plugfests (Interops). These events feature products that support OASIS Standards and/or Committee Specifications. Usually hosted in connection with a conference, trade show or other public event, Interops are official consortium activities, endorsed by one or more OASIS Technical Committees (TCs) and mutually supported by OASIS staff and a team of participating organizations.

1.1 Goals

OASIS TCs are encouraged to host Interops in order to:

• demonstrate broad support for a standard or specification;
• promote adoption;
• identify implementation or compatibility issues;
• provide members with the opportunity to interact with prospective customers; and/or
• show how a standard can be used in a particular application, vertical market, or scenario.

1.2 Types of Interops

Interop Demos show interoperability between members’ products, all of which adhere to a set of technical requirements defined by the TC and/or Interop Team. Although Interop Demos require the highest level of planning and coordination among participating members, they offer a greater opportunity for identifying potential implementation and compatibility issues.

Interop Showcases provide a common venue for demonstrating members’ products that support an OASIS Standard or Committee Specification. Because full compliance with a defined demonstration scenario is not required, an Interop Showcase is easier to organize and may be more readily accessible to a broader range of members.

Interop Plugfests offer the opportunity to determine product compliance and interoperability during a public event. Participation in Interop Plugfests is open to both members and non-members of OASIS.

Note: This Policy does not cover privately held Plugfests or formal certification testing.

To compare the features of Interop Demos, Showcases, and Plugfests, see Interop Matrix.

2. Participation

All Interops are conducted in a fair manner that reflects well on OASIS, the TC, the standard, and all participants.

2.1. Eligibility.

(a) For Interop Demos and Showcases: All participating organizations must hold current membership in OASIS at the Foundational, Sponsor, Contributor, or Individual levels. Individual-level members who are self-employed may participate on their own behalf; Individual/Associate-level members may not participate on behalf of their employers.

The Interop Team may invite a non-commercial organization (government agency, non-profit trade association, research institution, etc.) to endorse or provide context for the demo as a Scenario Partner. OASIS membership is not required for Scenario Partners; however, their involvement must be approved by the Interop Team and by OASIS Management.

Commercial entities that are not OASIS members must join the consortium in order to participate. Members are encouraged to recommend prospective participants to OASIS staff for membership outreach.

(b) For Interop Plugfests: Participants may be members or non-members of OASIS. Members may receive a discount on the participation fee (see Section 5.1) or other exclusive benefits.

2.2. Space selection. Because space is often limited, participation is reserved on a first-in basis. Once participation is confirmed, the priority order for selecting space within the demo area is determined by OASIS membership level (Foundational Sponsors first, followed by Sponsors, then Contributors, then Individuals). Within each level, the order for selecting space is based on the submission date of the member’s Interop registration form. Participation fees must be paid in full before selecting a space.

2.3. Onsite staff. Each organization participating in the Interop must have at least one representative present onsite at the event. (In special cases, this requirement may be waived by advance consent of OASIS staff and the Interop Team.) Limits on the maximum number of onsite representatives may be set by OASIS to accommodate space restrictions or rules related to the venue. Onsite, all representatives are expected to behave in a professional, collegial manner. Professional business attire is required.

3. Planning

3.1. Mailing list. Only the dedicated mailing list created by OASIS may be used for Interop planning and communication. Each organization participating in the Interop must have at least one representative subscribed to this list. (Subscriptions are managed by OASIS staff.) Only recognized representatives of organizations participating in the Interop may be subscribed to the Interop mailing list and attend Interop planning meetings and calls. By default, list archives are accessible to OASIS members only. Upon request, the Interop Team may further restrict archive access to only themselves and OASIS staff.

3.2. Interop Demo Lead. Chosen by the Interop Team or the TC, the Interop Lead works with OASIS staff to ensure the event is planned and executed in a fair, vendor-neutral, professional manner. The Interop Lead usually (but not always) represents an organization participating in the Interop. The Interop Lead’s responsibilities include:

• Chair Interop planning calls (or designate alternate from the Interop Team) and ensure minutes are posted to the mailing list in a timely manner.
• Notify OASIS staff promptly of any issues or concerns that might impact the success of the event.
• Provide onsite requirements (audio/visual equipment, internet connections, etc.) to OASIS staff.
• Provide a description of the Interop for use in OASIS promotional materials.
• Review OASIS promotional materials; provide press release quote on behalf of the Interop Team.
• Act as spokesperson for briefings with press and analysts, in coordination with OASIS staff.

4. Promotion

Promotional activities conducted on behalf of the group will be coordinated solely by OASIS staff. Organizations participating in the Interop are encouraged to promote their involvement provided they do so on their own behalf.

4.1. Press release. OASIS will issue a press release in support of the event that will feature the names of all OASIS members participating in the Interop. Foundational- and Sponsor-level members may provide executive quotes for the press release. Organizations participating in the Interop may issue their own corporate press releases, provided they notify OASIS staff in advance and adhere to the OASIS Media Relations Guidelines.

4.2. Collateral. OASIS will produce a promotional flyer describing the Interop that will be distributed onsite. Flyers for Interop Demos and Showcases will feature information on each Interop Participant. Each organization participating in the Interop may also distribute additional collateral onsite. Limits on collateral may be set if space is restricted.

4.3. Signage. All signage used onsite will be produced by OASIS staff.

4.4. Lead collection. Electronic capture of visitor contact information will be managed solely by OASIS staff and distributed in full to all OASIS members who participate in the Interop following the event.

5. Expenses

Interops are designed to be self-supporting activities.

5.1. Participation fee. To meet expenses, each organization participating in the Interop is required to pay a non-refundable participation fee. The amount and deadline for payment is determined in advance by OASIS staff, based on projected venue costs and anticipated number of participants. The fee may cover:

• Space rental
• Signage
• Collateral
• Audio-visual equipment rentals
• Connectivity (internet/intranet)
• Furniture rental
• OASIS press release distribution
• Staff support
• Other expenses

5.2. Contracting services. All financial and logistical matters are managed by OASIS staff. Interop participants may not enter into agreements or negotiate contracts on behalf of the group.

5.3. Donations. An OASIS Member Section, Interop participant, or other party may offer to co-sponsor the event by underwriting expenses or making a major donation of equipment or services. If the TC and OASIS Management agree to accept such contributions, the donor(s) may be recognized in the event promotion.

6. Additional requirements for Interop Demos and Plugfests only

The decision to conduct the Interop is made by the TC(s) responsible for the standard(s) or specification(s) demonstrated; the TC may also set broad parameters for the Interop, such as the version of the specification that will be used.

7. Additional requirements for Interop Demos only

7.1. Interoperability criteria. Once the basic demo requirements have been defined by the TC, all other technical decisions are made by the Interop Team (one vote per organization). The Interop Team collaborates to determine fair conformance or interoperability criteria, making reasonable efforts to accommodate products from all organizations participating in the Interop. All products demonstrated must support the technical requirements as defined by the Interop Team.

7.2. Inability to meet requirements. OASIS is unable to refund participation fees based on failure to meet demo requirements. In the event a member’s product is unable to meet the technical demo requirements, then the member retains the option to demonstrate its product within the OASIS space, provided: 1) the Interop Team approves participation; and 2) the member agrees to demonstrate its product in a manner that does not misrepresent or detract from the Interop Demo. The member would not be promoted as part of the Interop Demo but would receive recognition as providing a separate use case.

7.3. Deadlines. OASIS staff, in consultation with the Interop Team, may set an initial deadline for confirming participation to allow sufficient time for the group to prepare the demonstration. Every effort will be made to fill the space by this deadline; however, if additional Interop members are needed to cover event expenses, they may be allowed to join after the deadline. Any member joining after the initial deadline will still have to meet the requirements of the Interop Team. If there is a formal Interop test process then joining after that test deadline has passed will only occur with the approval of the Interop Team by Special Majority Vote.

7.4. Confidentiality agreements. The Interop Team may require participants to agree in advance that all implementation capabilities and test results will remain confidential within the Interop Team.

8. Additional provisions

In addition to this Policy, the OASIS Bylaws, and other OASIS policies, procedures, and guidelines apply. An Interop Team may specify additional provisions if required to address unique needs of its demonstration, provided the provisions are not prohibited by this or other OASIS policies. Additional provisions must be submitted in writing to OASIS Management and approved prior to implementation.

The OASIS Board of Directors may amend this Policy at any time at its sole discretion.

Contact events@oasis-open.org with questions or issues.

Dates Approved:  Thu, 2015-01-29 Effective:  Thu, 2015-01-29

Table of Contents

This version of the OASIS TC Process was approved by the OASIS Board of Directors on 26 May 2017 and became effective 01 July 2017. The change was announced to OASIS members on 23 June 2017 in https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/members/201706/msg00008.html.

Section 1. Technical Committees (TCs) 1.1 Purpose of TCs 1.2 TC Formation 1.3 First Meeting of a TC 1.4 TC Membership and Participation 1.5 Termination of TC Membership 1.6 Leaves of Absence 1.7 TC Transparency 1.8 TC Charter Clarification 1.9 TC Rechartering 1.10 TC Voting 1.11 TC Subcommittees 1.12 Closing a TC 1.13 Maintenance Activity of OASIS Standards Final Deliverables 1.14 Intellectual Property Rights Procedures 1.15 Commercial Terms and Conditions; Implementation Preferences Section 2. TC Work Products 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Work Product Components 2.3 Updating References 2.4 Work Product Approvals 2.5 Approval of a Committee Specification Draft 2.6 Public Review of a Committee Specification Draft 2.7 Approval of a Committee Specification 2.8 Approval of an OASIS Standard     2.8.1 Submission of a Candidate OASIS Standard     2.8.2 Public Review of a Candidate OASIS Standard     2.8.3 Initial call for consent for OASIS Standard 2.9 Approved Errata Section 3. Board of Directors Involvement in the TC Process 3.1 OASIS TC Administrator 3.2 Appeals Section 4. Application to Existing TCs

Section 1. Technical Committees (TCs)

1.1 Purpose of TCs

An OASIS Technical Committee is a group of Eligible Persons comprised of at least the Minimum Membership, formed and conducted according to the provisions of this TC Process, to develop and approve TC Work Products and perform the other activities permitted by this TC Process.  Each current version of the TC Process applies to previously established TCs upon its adoption.

The OASIS Committee Operations Process provides general provisions concerning the operation of all Committees that may apply to the work of a TC. The OASIS Naming Directives lists specific requirements that apply to TC Work Products.

Defined terms in this document have the meaning provided in OASIS Defined Terms. Additional definitions specific to the OASIS IPR Policy can be found in that document.

1.2 TC Formation

Any group of at least Minimum Membership shall be authorized to begin a Technical Committee by submitting to the OASIS TC Administrator a charter prepared using the TC Charter Template maintained and made available by the TC Administrator. The charter shall be written in English and provided to OASIS in electronic form as plain text. The name proposed for the TC shall be subject to approval by the TC Administrator. No information other than that requested in the template may be included in the proposal. Any documents referenced in the proposal shall be publicly available.

No later than 7 days following the submission of the charter, the OASIS TC Administrator shall either return the submission to its originators with an explanation indicating its failure to meet the requirements set forth in this section or shall post notice of the submission to an announced mailing list (or equivalent method), visible to the submission proposers and the OASIS Membership, for comment.

Comments will be received until the 14th day after the notice. Following the comment period, the OASIS TC Administrator shall hold a conference call among the Convener, the OASIS TC Administrator, and those proposers who wish to attend. Other OASIS Members who wish to attend may observe.

Following this conference call, the proposers may confirm that the existing charter stands or may amend it. The proposer group may submit an amended charter at any time until the 7th day before the Call for Participation. The proposers must also post a pointer to an account of each of any comments or issues raised during the comment period, along with its resolution.

Once all these elements have been received, the OASIS TC Administrator shall post them to the OASIS Membership with a Call For Participation and an announcement of a first meeting.

1.3 First Meeting of a TC

The first Meeting of a TC shall occur no less than 30 days after the Call for Participation in the case of a meeting held exclusively by telephone or other electronic means, and no less than 45 days after the Call for Participation in the case of a meeting held face-to-face.

If the first meeting of a TC is to be conducted as a face-to-face meeting, the Convener must arrange for teleconference facilities to be provided for those unable to attend in person.

Eligible Persons intending to participate in the first meeting must use the OASIS collaborative tools to register as a TC Member.

If the Eligible Person is an employee or designee of an OASIS Organizational Member, the Primary Representative of that organization must confirm to the Convener and to the TC Administrator that the person may become a Member of the TC.

Every Eligible Person who has so registered and been confirmed shall be a Member of the TC beginning with the first meeting. Every Eligible Person who has registered 7 days or more prior to the first meeting, been confirmed, and is present at the first meeting of a TC shall be a Voting Member of the TC beginning with the first meeting.

No later than 7 days prior to the meeting, the OASIS TC Administrator shall post a notice to the prospective Members on the TC’s general email list inviting indications of candidacy for TC Chair to be posted to that list.

The rules for conduct of meetings in the OASIS Committee Operations Process apply to the TC’s first Meeting. In addition, the first TC meeting has these rules:

1.3.1 The first meeting of a TC must occur at the place and time and in the manner described in the Call for Participation. Any initial TC meeting whose time or location is changed and any initial telephone or other electronic meeting that fails to grant access to every Eligible Person previously registering to attend shall be subject to appeal as provided in 3.2 Appeals.

1.3.2 At least Minimum Membership must become Voting Members at the first TC meeting or the TC shall be considered not to have been successfully started. A TC failing to start due to the absence of Minimum Membership may, with the approval of the TC Administrator, reschedule its first meeting. If the proposers do not reschedule the first meeting, the TC shall be closed.

1.3.3 At the first meeting of the TC, the Convener shall chair the meeting for the roll call and the election of the TC Chair or Co-Chairs. The TC must elect a Chair as the first order of business, from among nominations made by Voting Members at that meeting. Once the Chair is elected the role of Convener ends.

1.4 TC Membership and Participation

TC membership is per person, not per organization, and is not transferable from person to person.

Each TC Member is responsible for ensuring that their attendance at TC meetings is noted by the Chair and recorded.

1.4.1 Observer: An Eligible Person may become an Observer of a TC by registering as an Observer using the electronic collaboration tools provided by OASIS. If the Eligible Person is an employee or designee of an OASIS Organizational Member, the Primary Representative of that organization must be notified that the person has requested to become an Observer. The Observer is not a TC Member so has no attendance or participation requirements to maintain this status, other than to remain an Eligible Person.

1.4.2 Member: Any time after the first meeting, an Eligible Person shall become a TC Member by registering as a Member using the electronic collaboration tools provided by OASIS. If the Eligible Person is an employee or designee of an OASIS Organizational Member, the Primary Representative of that organization must confirm to the Chair and to the TC Administrator that the person may become a Member of the TC. Upon receipt by the Chair of confirmation by the Primary Representative, the Member may begin participating, but shall not have voting rights. A TC Member shall become eligible to vote in the TC when the requirements below are met.

1.4.3 Persistent Non-Voting Member: A Member or Voting Member who wishes to continue participating in the work of the committee but who does not wish to count for purposes of calculating Quorum, make or second motions, or vote may, at any time, change their role to Persistent Non-Voting Member by sending e-mail to both the Chair and the TC mailing list informing them of their change. The change will be effective as of the date of notice or future date specified in the email. A Persistent Non-Voting Member retains participation rights but is not eligible to vote and does not count towards Quorum. A Persistent Non-Voting Member who wishes to gain voting rights must send e-mail to both the Chair and the TC mailing list informing them of their intent to become a Voting Member and must follow the rules in section 1.4.4 as if they had lost their voting rights due to non-attendance.

1.4.4 Voting Member: A TC Member who lacks voting rights shall gain voting rights at the close of the second consecutive Meeting of the TC that he attends. If fewer than two Meetings are called within 60 days after the person becomes a Member, the Member shall gain voting rights at the close of the 60th day.

A Voting Member who is absent from two consecutive Meetings of the TC (as recorded in the minutes) loses his voting rights at the end of the second Meeting missed. If a TC has adopted a standing rule to conduct business only by electronic ballot, without Meetings, then a Voting Member who fails to cast a ballot in two consecutive Work Product Ballots for which the voting periods do not overlap loses his voting rights at the close of the second ballot missed. In case of multiple ballots taking place simultaneously, voting in a single ballot is sufficient to maintain voting rights.

Only a Voting Member may make or second a motion.

A Voting Member may at any time request to have his role changed to Member. As a Member, he will retain participation rights but will not be eligible to vote and will not count towards Quorum nor make nor second motions.

1.5 Termination of TC Membership

 A TC Member shall be considered to have resigned from a TC upon his sending notification of resignation to the TC general email list.

A person who loses Eligible Person status shall have his TC Membership terminated.

Persons who lose Eligible Person status shall have up to 14 days of TC membership as an OASIS Individual Member in which to re-establish eligibility. A Member shall lose TC membership on the 15th day if Eligible Person status has not been re-established.

Termination of membership in an OASIS TC shall automatically end all rights and privileges of participation including voting rights in the TC and shall terminate membership in any Subcommittee of that TC.

1.6 Leaves of Absence

Every Voting Member of an OASIS TC may request a Leave of Absence. A Leave of Absence shall not exceed 45 days. Each request shall be made by sending an email to the TC mailing list at least 7 days before the Leave is to start. The Leave must be approved by the TC.

During a Leave of Absence, a Voting Member shall not have voting rights or participation obligations in the TC or its Subcommittees. Voting rights shall resume immediately when the Leave ends or earlier if requested by the Member.

1.7 TC Transparency

The official copies of all resources of the TC and its associated Subcommittees, including web pages, documents, email lists and any other records of discussions, must be located only on facilities designated by OASIS. TCs and SCs may not conduct official business or technical discussions, store documents, or host web pages on servers or systems not designated by OASIS. All web pages, documents, ballot results and email archives of all TCs and SCs shall be publicly visible.

The permanent minutes of each TC meeting and a record of all decisions shall be posted to that TC’s general email list. All official communications and discussions of the TC must take place on the email list. Subscription to the general email list shall be required for members all Members of the TC. All TC email lists shall be archived for the duration of the corporation, and all TC email archives shall be publicly visible.

Each TC shall be provided with a public comment facility, the purpose of which is to receive comments from the public and is not for general discussion. Comments shall be publicly archived and must be considered by the TC.. TCs are not required to respond to comments. Comments to the TC made by non-TC Members, including from the public, must be made via the TC’s comment facility, and shall not be accepted via any other means.

1.8 TC Charter Clarification

A TC may clarify its Charter only for the purpose of removing ambiguity or for narrowing the scope of the topic defined by the Charter. The list of deliverables may be expanded only if the new deliverables are within the scope of the topic.

Approval for clarification shall require a Special Majority Vote of the TC.

The TC Administrator may prevent the proposed clarification from coming to vote if it is not in conformance with OASIS policies. No later than 7 days after receiving the request to start the Special Majority Vote, the TC Administrator must either open the ballot or reply to the TC with the reason why the change cannot be voted upon.

The clarified Charter shall not take effect until approved by the TC and announced by the TC Administrator.

1.9 TC Rechartering

In order to expand the scope of a TC, it must be rechartered. The TC shall retain the same name, all email lists and archives, web pages, etc. Contributions made to the TC under the prior charter must be recontributed to be used under the revised charter.

Approval for rechartering shall require a Special Majority Vote of the TC.

Rechartering shall not change the TC name nor the IPR Mode of the TC. If a different name or IPR Mode is desired then a new TC (with a unique name) must be formed and the normal rules for creating a new TC apply (see 1.2 TC Formation).

A proposal to recharter the TC must be made by Resolution and submitted to the TC Administrator. The proposal shall include all the items specified in 1.2 TC Formation including item 2(b) (date, time and location of the first meeting under the revised charter) and excluding items 2(d) and 2(e) (list of co-proposers and Primary Representative’s Statements of Support). The proposal shall clearly mark all changes from the charter in effect at the time of the proposal. The date of the first meeting must not be less than 7 days after the close of the ballot to approve rechartering.

Not later than 7 days after receiving the request to hold a vote, and if the proposal is complete, the TC Administrator shall schedule the Special Majority Vote.

If the ballot is approved, the following steps shall be taken:

1. Within 7 days of approval, the TC Administrator shall announce the rechartering to the OASIS Membership with instructions for how and when to join the newly rechartered TC.
2. 7 days before the first meeting, all work of the TC shall stop and the TC Administrator shall send an email to the TC mailing list describing the procedure for re-joining the TC and remove all Members and TC officers from the TC roster.
3. OASIS members wishing to (re)join the TC shall follow the normal procedures for joining a new TC. In the event that a member is not able to join in the 7 day period before the first meeting because of lack of online access, the member’s primary representative may ask the TC Administrator to add the member to the TC.

The same rules and procedures regarding the First Meeting of a TC specified under 1.3 First Meeting of a TC also apply for the first meeting of the rechartered TC, except as superseded in this section.

The time period for determining Members’ Participation Obligation shall restart at the first meeting of the TC under the revised charter.

1.10 TC Voting

TC votes require a Simple Majority Vote to pass, except as noted elsewhere in this Process. All TC ballots requiring a Special Majority Vote for approval must be conducted by the TC Administrator; the TC Chair shall request that the TC Administrator hold the Special Majority Vote, and the TC Administrator shall set up and conduct the ballot.

A Member of a TC must have voting rights at the time a ballot is opened in order to vote on that ballot. Every Voting Member of a TC has a single vote. Organizations do not vote in TCs. Proxies shall not be allowed in TC voting.

TCs may conduct electronic ballots, either by using the TC’s general mail list or the publicly archived electronic voting functionality provided by OASIS. An electronic ballot must remain open for a minimum of 7 days. Any Work Product Ballot conducted as an electronic ballot must permit each voter to choose “yes”, “no”, or “abstain.” Eligible voters may change their vote up until the end of the voting period.

1.11 TC Subcommittees

The TC may by Resolution create a Subcommittee (SC). The TC must close a Subcommittee by Resolution.

The deliverables of the SC are made only to the TC for such further action as the TC may elect. Members of the SC must first be Members of the TC. Observers of a TC may be Observers of a SC, but may not become SC members without first becoming a Member of the TC. An SC member may resign from the SC and remain a Member of the TC.

1.12 Closing a TC

A TC may be closed by Full Majority Vote of the TC, by Resolution of the OASIS Board of Directors, or by the OASIS TC Administrator.

The TC Administrator must close a TC that has completed the deliverables listed in its Charter if the TC does not add new deliverables or that fails to elect a Chair for the period provided in OASIS Committee Operations Process.

The TC Administrator may close a TC that fails to conduct at least one Quorate Meeting or conduct any Work Product Ballots during any six month period; whose membership falls below the Minimum Membership; which has not completed its deliverables within the schedule listed in its Charter; or which has failed to show progress towards achieving its purpose as defined by its Charter.

1.13 Maintenance Activity of OASIS Standards Final Deliverables

 Only one TC at a time may perform a Maintenance Activity on an OASIS Standards Final Deliverable.

Maintenance Activity on an OASIS Standards Final Deliverable is always within the scope of the TC that created the deliverable, whether or not the TC’s Charter explicitly references it.

Maintenance Activity on an OASIS Standards Final Deliverable may be done by a TC other than the TC that originated the deliverable, if: (a) the name of the OASIS Standards Final Deliverable to be maintained is listed as a deliverable in its Charter, and (b) if the originating TC is not closed, it has consented to the Maintenance Activity by a Special Majority Vote.

1.14 Intellectual Property Rights Procedures

The TC shall operate in accordance with the OASIS Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Policy.

Notices of Disclosed Claims, as defined in and required by the OASIS IPR Policy, shall be made by sending an email message to the TC Administrator, who shall post the disclosure on the TC’s web page and notify the TC via the TC general email list. The TC shall make no formal decision with regard to the applicability or validity of an IPR disclosure.

Contributions, as defined in the OASIS IPR Policy, shall be made by sending to the TC’s general email list either the contribution, or a notice that the contribution has been delivered to the TC’s document repository; a URL or other reference to the document is not sufficient. Written contributions must be converted to electronic format and delivered to the TC’s general email list or document repository. The TC is not required to acknowledge or use any Contribution.

1.15 Commercial Terms and Conditions; Implementation Preferences

Provisions involving business relations between buyer and seller such as guarantees, warranties, and other commercial terms and conditions shall not be included in an OASIS Committee’s documents or Work Products. The appearance that a Committee or its output endorses any particular products, services or companies must be avoided. Therefore, it generally is not acceptable for a TC to include manufacturer lists, service provider lists, or similar material in the text of a Standards Track Work Product (or the equivalent). Committees may elect to supply or point to provider-neutral lists of known implementation claims, in non-normative statements or their web pages. 

Where a sole source exists for essential equipment, materials or services necessary to comply with or to determine compliance with a specification or method, it is permissible to supply the name and address of the source in a footnote or informative annex as long as the words “or the equivalent” are added to the reference. In connection with a TC’s Standards Track Work Products that relate to the determination of whether products or services conform to one or more standards, that Work Product may include the process or criteria for determining conformity, as long as the description of the process or criteria is limited to technical and engineering concerns and does not include what would otherwise be a commercial term or product identification.

Implementations of all kinds are welcome (partial or complete; prototype, proof-of-concept, example, model, or reference implementation), provided that TCs do not designate any implementation of a specification as privileged or unique.

Section 2. TC Work Products

2.1 Introduction

The primary deliverables of an OASIS Technical Committee are its Work Products. These are descriptive, narrative documents and associated materials such as schemas, data dictionaries, UML models, or other associated content, that address the scope of work described in the TC’s charter.

Work Products may be either Standards Track Work Products (intended to specify how to implement some data interchange format, protocol, process definition, service protocol, etc.) or Non-Standards Track Work Products (intended to provide ancillary information to assist in understanding and implementing the Standards Track work). Non-Standards Track Work Products may not contain Normative content except as excerpts from a Standards Track Work Product.

This section defines specific requirements that apply to preparing, approving and advancing Work Products through the stages of the OASIS approval process. The OASIS Naming Directives lists additional specific requirements that apply to TC Work Products.

2.2 Work Product Components

In general, the content of a Work Product is the domain of the participants in the Technical Committee. They are presumed to be the subject matter experts in their field, best positioned to know both the solutions that must be developed and the optimum way to organize and present those solutions to their community.

The following specific requirements of the OASIS TC Process apply to all Work Products.

2.2.1  General. All documents and other files produced by the TC, including Work Products at any level of approval, must use the OASIS file naming scheme and must include the OASIS copyright notice. Work Products must be written using the OASIS document authoring templates, which shall be maintained and made available by the TC Administrator. The name of any Work Product may not include any trademarks or service marks not owned by OASIS.

2.2.2  File Formats. Editable formats of all versions of TC documents must be delivered to the TC’s document repository. Working Drafts may be in any format (i.e. produced by any application). All approved versions of OASIS Deliverables must be published in (1) editable source, (2) HTML or XHTML, and (3) PDF formats. The TC must explicitly designate one of those formats as the authoritative document.

2.2.3  Multi-Part Work Products. A Work Product may be composed of any number of files of different types, though any such multi-part Work Product must have a single Work Product name and version number. Irrespective of the number and status of the constituent parts, the Work Product as a whole must be approved by a single Work Product Ballot.

 2.2.4  Allowed changes.   After a Work Product has been approved as a Standards Track or Non-Standards Track Work Product (for example, as a Committee Specification Draft), no further changes may be made to the content of the Work Product except for those made by the TC Administrator as part of the official publication process of the Work Product. The TC may continue to make changes to the next working draft.

2.2.5  Computer Language Definitions. All normative computer language definitions that are part of the Work Product, such as XML instances, schemas or Java(TM) code, including fragments of such, must be well formed and valid.

For Standards Track Work Products:

• All normative computer language definitions must also be provided in separate plain text files;
• Each text file must be referenced from the Work Product; and
• Where any definition in these separate files disagrees with the definition found in the specification documentation, the definition in the separate file prevails.

2.2.6  Conformance Clauses. A Standards Track Work Product that is approved by the TC at the Committee Specification Public Review Draft, Committee Specification or OASIS Standard level must include a separate section, listing a set of numbered conformance clauses, to which any implementation of the specification must adhere in order to claim conformance to the specification (or any optional portion thereof).

 2.2.7  Notifications. Every Work Product must clearly indicate on the cover page whether it is a Standards Track Work Product or Non-Standards Track Work Product.

2.3 Updating References

A TC wishing to update a reference in its Normative or Non-Normative References section whose status is expected to change between TC approval of a Work Product and its publication may do so in cooperation with the OASIS TC Administrator. The TC must include the anticipated change in its motion to approve the Work Product and must alert The TC Administrator to the expected changes at the time the request to publish the Work Product is made.

2.4 Work Product Approvals

Technical Committees may only approve the following types of Work Products:

2.4.1 The following Standards Track Work Products:

1. Committee Specification Draft,
2. Committee Specification Public Review Draft,
3. Committee Specification,
4. Candidate OASIS Standard,
5. Approved Errata.

OASIS Standards are approved by the organizational members of OASIS as described in this section.

Each of the progressions above must begin with step 1, and no step may be skipped. However, a TC is not required to progress a Work Product from one step to the next.

2.4.2 The following Non-Standards Track Work Products:

1. Committee Note Draft
2. Committee Note Public Review Draft
3. Committee Note

Public reviews are optional for Committee Notes. A TC may approve a Committee Note without public review and request that the TC Administrator publish it to the OASIS Library. Approval of the draft shall require a Full Majority Vote of the TC. If a TC wishes to conduct public reviews before approving a Committee Note, the same procedures for approval and public review  of a Committee Specification Draft as outlined in section 2.5 and section 2.6 apply.

A Committee Note is never progressed as an OASIS standard.

2.5 Approval of a Committee Specification Draft

The TC may at any stage during development of a Work Product approve a Working Draft as a Committee Specification Draft. Approval of these drafts shall require a Full Majority Vote of the TC. The TC may approve a Working Draft, revise it, and re-approve it any number of times as a Committee Specification Draft.

2.6  Public Review of a Committee Specification Draft

Before the TC can approve a Committee Specification Draft as a Committee Specification, the TC must conduct a public review of the work. The decision by the TC to submit the draft for public review requires a Full Majority Vote. The draft approved to go to review shall be called a Committee Specification Public Review Draft. The public review must be announced by the TC Administrator to the OASIS Membership, to any external stakeholders identified by the TC, and optionally to other public mail lists or other venues. The TC Administrator shall at the same time issue a call for IPR disclosure for the Committee Specification Draft.

Comments from non-TC Members must be collected via the TC’s archived public comment facility; comments made through any other means shall not be accepted. Comments made by Members of the TC must be made via the TC general email list. The TC must acknowledge the receipt of each comment, track the comments received, and post to its primary e-mail list its disposition of each comment after the end of the review period.

No changes may be made to the public review draft during a review. If the TC decides by Full Majority Vote that changes are required, the draft shall be withdrawn from review after the Chair informs the TC Administrator. The draft may be subsequently resubmitted by the TC for a new public review.

The TC may conduct any number of public reviews. The initial public review of a draft must take place for a minimum of 30 days, and any subsequent reviews must be held for a minimum of 15 days. Changes made to a committee draft after a review must be clearly identified in any subsequent review, and the subsequent review shall be limited in scope to changes made in the previous review. Before starting another review cycle the revisions must be re-approved as a Committee Specification Draft and then approved to go to public review by the TC.

If any changes that are Material are made to the draft after the public review then the TC must conduct another public review. The draft may not be considered for approval by the TC as a Committee Specification until it has undergone a review cycle during which it has received no comments that result in any changes that are Material.

If only Non-Material Changes are made to the draft after the public review, then the TC may proceed with the approval as a Committee Specification in accordance with Section 2.7 without conducting another public review cycle.

2.7  Approval of a Committee Specification

After the public review, the TC may approve the Committee Specification Draft as a Committee Specification. If any comments have been received during the most recent public review period, that vote may not commence any earlier than 7 days after the last day of that public review. The approval of a Committee Specification shall require a Special Majority Vote. The TC Chair shall notify the TC Administrator that the TC requests a Special Majority Vote for the advancement of the draft as a Committee Specification and provide to the TC Administrator any other required information. The TC Administrator shall set up and conduct the ballot to approve the Committee Specification

If Non-Material Changes have been made to the draft since its last public review then the TC must provide an acceptable summary that is clear and comprehensible of the changes made since the last public review and a statement that the changes are all Non-Material to the TC Administrator. The TC Administrator shall announce the opening of the ballot to approve the draft to the OASIS Membership and optionally on other public mail lists along with the summary of changes and the TC’s statement. If any Eligible Person objects that the changes are not Non-Material before the ballot closes, the TC Administrator shall halt the ballot and require the TC to submit the draft for another public review cycle. If such objection is made after the ballot has closed, the TC Administrator shall reject it and the results of the ballot shall stand.

2.8  Approval of an OASIS Standard

Approval of an OASIS Standard is a multi-step process:

1. Submission of a Candidate OASIS Standard (COS) to the TC Administrator,
2. Completion of a public review lasting a minimum of 60 days, and
3. A call for consent to approve the COS as OASIS Standard.
4. A potential single, second call for consent after addressing negative comments.

2.8.1  Submission of a Candidate OASIS Standard

After the approval of a Committee Specification, and after three Statements of Use referencing the Committee Specification have been presented to the TC, a TC may resolve by Special Majority Vote to submit the Committee Specification as a Candidate OASIS Standard. At least one of the Statements of Use must come from an OASIS Organizational Member. The TC may decide to withdraw the submission, by Special Majority Vote, at any time until the final approval. The chair shall submit the request for the Special Majority Vote using the request mechanism designated by the OASIS TC Administrator.

No part of the submission may be changed or altered in any way after being submitted to the TC Administrator, including by Errata or corrigenda. Errata, corrigenda or other changes to a Candidate OASIS Standard are not permitted after its submission for OASIS Standard approval, except that changes which address comments associated with valid objections to a call for consent for OASIS Standard may be allowed as described in section 2.8.3 below.

2.8.2  Public Review of a Candidate OASIS Standard

A public review of the Candidate OASIS Standard shall be announced by the TC Administrator to the OASIS Membership list and optionally on other public mail lists. The public review shall remain open a minimum of 60 days.

Comments from non-TC Members must be collected via the TC’s archived public comment facility; comments made through any other means  shall not be accepted. Comments made by Members of the TC must be made via the TC general email list. The TC must acknowledge the receipt of each comment, track the comments received, and post to its primary e-mail list the disposition of each comment at the end of the review period.

No changes may be made to the Candidate OASIS Standard during a review. If the TC decides by Full Majority Vote that changes are needed, then the specification must be withdrawn from review after the Chair informs the TC Administrator.

Upon completion of the public review, the Chair must notify the TC Administrator of the results.

• If no comments were received, the TC Administrator must start the call for consent for OASIS Standard within 7 days of notification.
• If comments were received, but no changes are to be made to the Candidate OASIS Standard, the Chair will request that the TC Administrator start a Special Majority Ballot for the TC to approve continuing with the OASIS Standard call for consent. The TC Administrator will begin said ballot within 7 days of receipt. Upon successful completion of that ballot, the TC Administrator will, within 7 days, begin the call for consent for OASIS Standard approval.
• If comments were received and only Non-Material Changes are to be made to the Candidate OASIS Standard, the editor(s) may prepare a revised Candidate OASIS Standard. Changes may only be made to address the comments. The TC must provide an acceptable summary that is clear and comprehensible of the changes made and a statement that the TC judges the changes to be Non-Material to the TC Administrator and request a Special Majority Vote to proceed with the call for consent. The TC Administrator shall hold the Special Majority Vote and announce it to the OASIS membership and optionally on other public mail lists along with the summary of changes and the TC’s statement. If the Special Majority Vote passes, the TC Administrator must start the call for consent for OASIS Standard within 7 days of notification.
• If comments were received and Material Changes are to be made to the Candidate OASIS Standard, the editors(s) may prepare a revised specification to be approved as a Committee Specification Draft by the TC and proceed with a subsequent Public Review as noted in Section 2.6. Before resubmission the specification must be approved as a Committee Specification.

2.8.3 Call for consent for OASIS Standard

In calling for consent to progress a Candidate OASIS Standard to OASIS Standard, each OASIS Organizational Member at the time of the call shall be entitled to express their consent. Consent shall be established using the publicly archived electronic voting facility supplied by OASIS.

An announcement will be sent to each member entitled to express their consent and shall specify the closing date and time for the consent period which must be open for at least 14 days. Eligible members are assumed to agree to consent and must explicitly use the voting facility if they wish to record an objection to the Candidate OASIS Standard’s progressing.

The TC shall be required to respond only to valid objections. In order to be considered valid, an objection must:

1. Be entered on the electronic ballot prior to its closing, and
2. Must be accompanied by a reason for the objection and/or a proposed remedy which would satisfy the objector, provided either on the ballot or publicly to the TC’s archived public comment facility or, for a TC Member, to the TC’s mailing list.

The TC Administrator shall make the final determination as to whether objections are valid or not.

Ballot results shall be publicly visible during the consent period. Eligible Members may change their opinion up until the end of the consent period. The results of a call for consent on a proposed standard shall be provided to the membership and to the TC no later than seven days following the close of the consent period.

If at the end of the consent period:

1. There are no valid objections, the candidate OASIS Standard shall become an OASIS Standard.
2. 15 or more of eligible OASIS Members have submitted valid objections, the Candidate OASIS Standard shall be deemed to have been rejected and shall not progress to OASIS Standard.
3. There are valid objections amounting to less than 15 eligible OASIS Members, the TC shall have 30 days to try to resolve the objections or withdraw the submission. If the TC takes no formal action within this 30 day period, the Candidate OASIS Standard shall not progress to OASIS Standard.

If the TC chooses to attempt to resolve the objections, the TC shall be required to interact with each objector to discuss their objections and the proposed remedies. However, if an objector does not make himself available to meet with the TC or to provide written answers to questions from the TC within the 30 day period, the TC shall not be required to take further action on that objection. The TC shall not be required to make any changes to the Candidate OASIS Standard in response to specific objections nor shall they be required to satisfy any objector.

After meeting with the objectors and deciding how to resolve the objections, the TC shall prepare a comment resolution log, approve it by Full Majority Vote and submit it to the OASIS TC Administrator.

After submitting the comment resolution log to the OASIS TC Administrator, the TC shall have 30 days to take one of the following actions via Special Majority Vote:

1. Withdraw the submission entirely.
2. If no changes are made to the COS, request the TC Administrator to approve the submitted COS as an OASIS Standard despite the objections.
3. Submit a Candidate OASIS Standard amended to address some or all of the issues raised by the objections and either:
   1. If no Material changes have been made to the COS, request the TC Administrator to approve the amended COS as an OASIS Standard, or
   2. If Material changes have been made to the COS, request a second call for consent to progress the amended COS to OASIS Standard.

The TC Administrator shall make the final determination as to whether changes to an amended COS are Material or Non-Material. If the TC Administrator deems any changes made to be Material, then a second call for consent shall be required.  Decisions of the TC Administrator shall be subject to appeal as described in section 4.2 below.

A second call for consent shall be run in the same way as the initial call for consent with the exception that:

1. If a valid objection from the first call for consent is substantively repeated, it shall not be counted as a valid objection for the second call for consent, and
2. If Material changes are deemed necessary to satisfy valid objections to the second call for consent, the COS shall not become an OASIS standard.

A TC only gets one attempt to make Material changes in the consent process.

Failure of a call for consent for any reason shall not prevent a later version of the same specification from being submitted again as specified in this section.

2.9 Approved Errata

A TC may approve a set of Errata to an OASIS Standard that it developed as Approved Errata by:

1. Adopting the set of proposed corrections as a Committee Specification Draft, in the form of a list of changes, and optionally accompanied by a copy of the original OASIS Standard text marked to incorporate the proposed changes,
2. Confirming by Full Majority Vote that the proposed corrections do not constitute a Material Change,
3. Submitting the proposed corrections for a 15-day public review, and completing that review, pursuant to Section 2.6, and
4. After the public review, confirming the proposed corrections as Approved Errata by a Full Majority Vote.

Once approved, the Approved Errata shall be made available with the OASIS Standard it corrects, in any publication of that OASIS Standard.

A TC may not adopt Approved Errata to an OASIS Standard more than once in any six-month period.

Section 3. Board of Directors Involvement in the TC Process

3.1 OASIS TC Administrator

The OASIS TC Administrator shall act as the Technical Committee Liaison to the Board for the purpose of keeping the Board apprised of activities related to the TC Process. The specific duties of the TC Liaison shall be specified by the Board in consultation with the TC Administrator but shall, at a minimum, provide for the submission to the Board of a notice when a proposal has been received for the creation of a new TC and when a TC submits a Committee Specification as a Candidate OASIS Standard. Such notice shall be delivered via email to the Board immediately upon the receipt of the submission by the TC Administrator. The TC Administrator shall also send a copy of proposals for the creation of new TCs to the Technical Advisory Board (TAB) for their comment.

Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in this TC Process, upon majority vote of the members of the Board at a meeting thereof duly called and constituted, the creation of a new TC may be prevented, or a proposed OASIS Standard may be withheld from voting by OASIS Membership; the proposal or the submission shall be returned to the proposers or the sponsoring TC for additional consideration, with an explanation of the reasons for such action.

The Board of Directors may amend this TC Process at any time and from time to time at its sole discretion.

3.2 Appeals

Any Eligible Person who believes that:

• an action taken or not taken by or with respect to TCs, or
• an action taken or not taken by the TC Administrator,

is in violation of the procedures set forth in this TC Process or OASIS policies specified by the OASIS Board of Directors, may appeal such action or inaction.

Appellants shall file a complaint within 30 days of the action being appealed or at any time with respect to an inaction. The complaint shall state the nature of the objection(s), including any direct and material adverse effects upon the appellants; the section(s) of this TC Process or OASIS policies at issue; the actions or inactions at issue; and the specific remedial action(s) that would satisfy the appellants’ concerns. Previous efforts to resolve the objection(s) and the outcome of each shall be noted.

Appeals regarding actions or inactions of a TC must be made to the TC Administrator.

Appeals regarding actions or inactions of the TC Administrator must be made to the OASIS Board of Directors.

In the case of an appeal to the TC Administrator: within 15 days of receipt of the complaint, the TC Administrator shall provide a copy of the complaint to the TC; and within 30 days of such receipt, shall render a decision, with a copy to the TC.

In the case of an appeal to the OASIS Board of Directors: such appeal, in order to be valid, shall be sent to the board comment list (oasis-board-comment@lists.oasis-open.org) and the relevant TC(s). The Board shall hold a hearing (with the appellants invited) within 45 days of receipt of the appeal. The Board shall render its decision within 30 days of the hearing. The decision of the Board shall be final.

The OASIS Board of Directors has the authority to effect such remedial action as may be necessary to remedy a complaint brought under this TC Process.

Section 4. Application to Existing TCs

This TC Process applies to previously established TCs upon its adoption.

Dates Approved:  Thu, 2014-04-24 Effective:  Thu, 2014-05-01

Table of Contents

This version of the OASIS TC Process was approved by the OASIS Board of Directors on 24 April 2014 and became effective 01 May 2014. The change was announced to OASIS members on 12 May 2014 in https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/members/201405/msg00017.html.

1. Definitions 2. Technical Committees 2.1 TC Discussion Lists 2.2 TC Formation 2.3 First Meeting of a TC 2.4 TC Membership and Participation 2.5 Termination of TC Membership 2.6 Leaves of Absence 2.7 TC Chairs 2.8 TC Visibility 2.9 TC Procedure 2.10 TC Meetings 2.11 TC Charter Clarification 2.12 TC Rechartering 2.13 TC Voting 2.14 TC Subcommittees 2.15 Closing a TC 2.16 Maintenance Activity of OASIS Standards Final Deliverables 2.17 Intellectual Property Rights Procedures 2.18 Work Product Quality 2.19 Designated Cross-Reference Changes 2.20 Commercial Terms and Conditions 3. Approval Process 3.1 Approval of a Committee Draft 3.2 Public Review of a Committee Draft 3.3 Approval of a Committee Specification 3.4 Approval of an OASIS Standard 3.5 Approved Errata 4. Board of Directors Involvement in the TC Process 4.1 OASIS TC Administrator 4.2 Appeals 5. Application to Existing TCs

Section 1. Definitions

1. “Administrative Document” is a document which is used by a TC only in support of internal operations such as minutes, agenda, liaison statements, issue lists, bug lists, etc. and which are not an OASIS Deliverable. An Administrative Document must not use a Work Product template. Inter-group communications to request review, respond to review comments, or to respond to questions or requests for clarifications are considered to be Administrative Documents.
2. “Approved Errata” shall have the meaning defined in Section 3.5.
3. “Candidate OASIS Standard” is a document that has been submitted for approval as an OASIS Standard as specified in Section 3.4.
4. “Charter” is the organizational document for a TC comprised of the items included in the proposal to form that TC, as defined in Section 2.2, and may be modified as described in Section 2.11.
5. “Committee Note” is a Non-Standards Track Work Product that has been approved by a Technical Committee as specified in Section 3.3.
6. “Committee Note Draft” is a Non-Standards Track Work Product approved by a Technical Committee as specified in Section 3.1.
7. “Committee Note Public Review Draft” is a Committee Note Draft that has been approved by the TC to go to public review as specified in Section 3.2 of this Process.
8. “Committee Specification” is a Standards Track Work Product that has been approved by a Technical Committee as specified in Section 3.3.
9. “Committee Specification Draft” is a Standards Track Work Product approved by a Technical Committee as specified in Section 3.1.
10. “Committee Specification Public Review Draft” is a Committee Specification Draft that has been approved by the TC to go to public review as specified in Section 3.2 of this Process.
11. “Convener” is an Eligible Person who serves in the role of organizing the first meeting of the TC, as defined in Section 2.3.
12. “Eligible Person” means one of a class of individuals that includes (a) OASIS Individual Members, (b) employees or designees of OASIS Organizational Members, and (c) such other persons as may be designated by the OASIS Board of Directors.
13. “Errata” means a set of changes or proposed changes to an OASIS Standard that are not Substantive Changes.
14. “Full Majority Vote” is a TC vote in which more than 50% (more than half) of the Voting Members vote “yes”, regardless of the number of Voting Members present in the meeting. Abstentions are not counted. For example, in a TC in which there are 20 Voting Members, at least 11 Voting Members must vote “yes” for a motion to pass.
15. “IPR” means intellectual property rights.
16. “Leave of Absence” shall have the meaning defined in Section 2.6.
17. “Meeting” is a meeting of the TC that is properly called and scheduled in advance as described in Section 2.10.
18. “Member“, with respect to a TC, means an Eligible Person who is allowed to subscribe to the TC email list, participate in list discussions, attend and participate in TC meetings, and make Contributions to the TC. The process for becoming a Member of a TC is defined in Section 2.4.
19. “Minimum Membership” means five Voting Members of a TC (or, in the case of a TC about to be formed, five Eligible Persons), at least two of which represent OASIS Organizational Members.
20. “Non-Material Change” is any change to the content of a Work Product that does not add or remove any feature of the Work Product and that: (a) constitutes only error corrections, editorial changes, or formatting changes; or (b) is a pro forma change to content required by TC Administration.
21. “Non-Standards Track Work Product” is a Work Product produced and approved by a TC in accordance with the TC Process which may be progressed to Committee Note as described in Section 3. Non-Standards Track Work Products are intended to be informative and explanatory in nature. They are not subject to the patent licensing and non-assertion obligations requirements of the OASIS IPR Policy.
22. “Normative Portion” shall have the meaning defined for such term by the OASIS IPR Policy.
23. “Normative Reference” means a reference in a Standards Track Work Product to an external document or resource with which the implementer must comply, in order to comply with a Normative Portion of the Work Product.
24. “OASIS Deliverable” means any of the following: Committee Specification Drafts, Committee Specification Public Review Drafts, Committee Specifications, Candidate OASIS Standards, OASIS Standards, Approved Errata, Committee Note Drafts, Committee Note Public Review Drafts, and Committee Notes.
25. “OASIS Individual Member” means an OASIS Member who is classified as such in their executed Membership Agreement.
26. “OASIS Member” means a person, organization or entity who is a voting or non-voting member of the corporation, as defined by the OASIS Bylaws.
27. “OASIS Non-Standards Draft Deliverable” means any of the following: Committee Note Drafts and Committee Note Public Review Drafts.
28. “OASIS Non-Standards Final Deliverable” means any of the following: Committee Notes.
29. “OASIS Organizational Member” means an OASIS Member who is classified as such in their executed Membership Agreement.
30. “OASIS Standards Draft Deliverable” means any of the following: Committee Specification Drafts and Committee Specification Public Review Drafts.
31. “OASIS Standards Final Deliverable” means any of the following: Committee Specifications, Candidate OASIS Standards, OASIS Standards and Approved Errata.
32. “OASIS Standard” is a Candidate OASIS Standard that has been approved by the OASIS Membership as specified in Section 3.4.
33. “OASIS TC Administrator” means the person or persons representing OASIS in administrative matters relating to TCs. All official communications must be sent to tc-admin@oasis-open.org.
34. “Observer” is an Eligible Person who is subscribed to the TC email list, and may attend TC meetings, but is not allowed to participate in TC email list discussions, participate or speak in TC meetings, or make Contributions to the TC. The process for becoming an Observer is defined in Section 2.4.
35. “Persistent Non-Voting Member” is a TC Member who has declared their non-voting status in that TC. The process for becoming a Persistent Non-Voting Member of a TC is defined in Section 2.4.
36. “Primary Representative“, for any OASIS Organizational Member, means the person or persons designated by that Member to serve as the consortium’s principal contact for administrative issues.
37. “Public” and “publicly” mean all persons, organizations and entities, whether or not OASIS Members.
38. “Quorum” is the number of Voting Members of a TC that must be present in a meeting so that Resolutions and decisions may be made. The Quorum for OASIS TC meetings is a simple majority (more than half) of Voting Members.
39. “Quorate Meeting” is a TC meeting at which a Quorum is present.
40. “Resolution” means a decision reached by a TC by vote. Resolutions require a Simple Majority Vote to pass, unless a Full Majority Vote or Special Majority Vote is required under this Process.
41. “Simple Majority Vote” is a vote in which the number of “yes” votes cast is greater than the number of “no” votes cast. Abstentions are not counted. For example, in a Quorate Meeting in which 20 Voting Members are present, if 7 vote “yes” and 4 vote “no”, the motion passes.
42. “Special Majority Vote” is a TC vote in which at least 2/3 (two thirds) of the Voting Members vote “yes” and no more than 1/4 (one fourth) of the Voting Members vote “no”. These numbers are based on the total number of Voting Members, regardless of the number of Voting Members present in the meeting. Abstentions are not counted. For example, in a TC in which there are 30 Voting Members, at least 20 Voting Members must vote “yes” for a motion to pass; but if 8 or more vote “no” then the motion fails. All Special Majority Votes must be conducted via electronic ballot by the OASIS TC Administrator.
43. “Standards Track Work Product” is a Work Product produced and approved by a TC in accordance with the TC Process which may be promoted to Committee Specification or OASIS Standard as described in Section 3.
44. “Statement of Use“, with respect to a Committee Specification, is a written statement that a party has successfully used or implemented that specification in accordance with all or some of its conformance clauses specified in Section 2.18, identifying those clauses that apply, and stating whether its use included the interoperation of multiple independent implementations. The Statement of Use must be made to a specific version of the Committee Specification and must include the Specification’s approval date. The party may be an OASIS Member or a non-member. In case of a non-member, the Statement of Use must be submitted on the TC comment-list. A TC may require a Statement of Use to include hyperlinks to documents, files or demonstration transcripts that enable TC members to evaluate the implementation or usage. A Statement of Use submitted to the TC must be approved by TC resolution as an acceptable Statement of Use with respect to the Committee Specification. A party can only issue one Statement of Use for a given specification. When issued by an OASIS Organizational Member, a Statement of Use must be endorsed by the Organizational Member’s Primary Representative.
45. “Subcommittee” (or “SC”) is a group of Members of a TC producing recommendations for consideration by the parent TC.
46. “Substantive Change” is a change to an OASIS Standard that would require a compliant application or implementation to be modified or rewritten in order to remain compliant.
47. “Technical Committee” (or “TC”) means a group comprised of at least the Minimum Membership formed and conducted according to the provisions of this OASIS TC Process.
48. “Voting Member” is a Member of a TC who has voting rights in the TC. The process for gaining voting rights is defined in Section 2.4.
49. “Work Product” is a document which is either a Standards Track Work Product or a Non-Standards Track Work Product.
50. “Work Product Approval Motion” is any motion to initiate a Work Product Ballot.
51. “Work Product Ballot” is any TC ballot for the:
    • approval of a Committee Specification Draft or Committee Note Draft,
    • start of a Public Review,
    • approval of a Committee Specification, or a Committee Note,
    • submission of a Committee Specification as a Candidate OASIS Standard.
52. “Working Draft” is a preliminary version of a Work Product produced by one or more TC Members that has not yet been voted on by the TC and approved as a Committee Specification Draft or a Committee Note. Some examples are initial contributions and revisions made by editors or other TC Members.

The use of the term “day” or “days” in this TC Process refers to calendar days.

Section 2. Technical Committees

2.1 TC Discussion Lists

Any group of at least three Eligible Persons may begin a publicly subscribable discussion list for the purpose of forming a TC by submitting to the OASIS TC Administrator the following items:

(1) The name of the discussion list, which shall not be the same as the name of the list in which the TC itself shall operate if formed.

(2) A preliminary statement of scope for the TC whose formation the list is intended to discuss.

(3) The names, electronic mail addresses, and OASIS Organizational or Individual Membership affiliations of the three or more Eligible Persons proposing to create the discussion list.

(4) The name of the discussion list leader.

No later than 15 days following the submission, the OASIS TC Administrator shall provide these materials to the OASIS Membership with a Call For Participation in a discussion list whose purpose is to propose the TC described in the application.

Discussion on the list is restricted to evaluating the interest in proposing a new OASIS TC, and defining the proposal for one or more new OASIS TCs. The list of subscribers to the discussion list shall be available to all subscribers. The discussion list shall automatically close 90 days after the Call For Participation is issued.

2.2 TC Formation

Any group of at least Minimum Membership shall be authorized to begin a TC by submitting to the OASIS TC Administrator, with a copy to those listed in 2(d) and 2(e) below, the following items, written in English and provided in electronic form as plain text. No information other than these items may be included in the proposal. All items must be provided in any subsequent revision of the proposal, and must be submitted in the same manner as the original submission. Any documents referenced in the proposal shall be publicly available.

(1) The Charter of the TC, which includes only the following items:

(1)(a) The name of the TC, such name not to have been previously used for an OASIS TC and not to include any trademarks or service marks not owned by OASIS. The proposed TC name is subject to TC Administrator approval and may not include any misleading or inappropriate names. The proposed name must specify any acronyms or abbreviations of the name that shall be used to refer to the TC.

(1)(b) A statement of purpose, including a definition of the problem to be solved.

(1)(c) The scope of the work of the TC, which must be germane to the mission of OASIS, and which includes a definition of what is and what is not the work of the TC, and how it can be determined when the work of the TC has been completed. The scope may reference a specific contribution of existing work as a starting point, but other contributions may be made by TC Members on or after the first meeting of the TC. Such other contributions shall be considered by the TC Members on an equal basis to improve the original starting point contribution.

(1)(d) A list of deliverables, with projected completion dates.

(1)(e) Specification of the IPR Mode under which the TC will operate.

(1)(f) The anticipated audience or users of the work.

(1)(g) The language in which the TC shall conduct business.

(2) Non-normative information regarding the startup of the TC, which includes:

(2)(a) Identification of similar or applicable work that is being done in other OASIS TCs or by other organizations, why there is a need for another effort in this area and how this proposed TC will be different, and what level of liaison will be pursued with these other organizations.

(2)(b) The date, time, and location of the first meeting, whether it will be held in person or by telephone, and who will sponsor this first meeting. The first meeting of a TC shall occur no less than 30 days after the announcement of its formation in the case of a meeting held exclusively by telephone or other electronic means, and no less than 45 days after the announcement of its formation in the case of a meeting held face-to-face (whether or not a telephone bridge is also available).

(2)(c) The projected ongoing meeting schedule for the year following the formation of the TC, or until the projected date of the final deliverable, whichever comes first, and who will be expected to sponsor these meetings.

(2)(d) The names, electronic mail addresses, and membership affiliations of at least Minimum Membership who support this proposal and are committed to the Charter and projected meeting schedule.

(2)(e) For each OASIS Organizational Member listed in (2)(d), the name, electronic mail address, membership affiliation, and statement of support for the proposed Charter from the Primary Representative.

(2)(f) The name of the Convener who must be an Eligible Person.

(2)(g) The name of the Member Section with which the TC intends to affiliate, if any.

(2)(h) Optionally, a list of contributions of existing technical work that the proposers anticipate will be made to this TC.

(2)(i) Optionally, a draft Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) document regarding the planned scope of the TC, for posting on the TC’s website.

(2)(j) Optionally, a proposed working title and acronym for the Work Products to be developed by the TC.

No later than 5 days following the submission, the OASIS TC Administrator shall either return the submission to its originators, with an explanation indicating its failure to meet the requirements set forth in this section, or shall post notice of the submission to an announced mailing list (or equivalent method) visible to the submission proposers and the OASIS Membership, for comment.

The notice will announce that comments will be received until the 14th day after the notice, and will announce a date within 4 days of that 14th day for a conference call, among the Convener, the OASIS TC Administrator, and those proposers who wish to attend. Other OASIS Members who wish to attend may observe.

The proposer group may amend their submission at any time until the 28th day after the submission (except that changes to the roster of proposers may occur at any time until the final posting). By the 28th day the proposer group must post a pointer to an account of each of the comments / issues raised during that review, along with its resolution.

No later than the 30th day after the submission, if those pointers have been posted, and the last version of the submission from the proposer group meets the requirements of these rules, the OASIS TC Administrator must post them to the OASIS Membership with a Call For Participation and an announcement of a first meeting. Otherwise, the Convener may obtain a single 10-day extension for posting a compliant proposal with the OASIS TC Administrator.

2.3 First Meeting of a TC

Eligible Persons intending to participate in the first meeting must use the OASIS collaborative tools to register as a TC Member, and to specify whether they intend to gain voting rights, no later than 7 days prior to a meeting. No later than 7 days prior to the meeting, the OASIS TC Administrator will post a notice to the prospective Members on the TC’s general email list inviting indications of candidacy for TC Chair to be posted to that list.

If the first meeting of a TC is to be conducted as a face-to-face meeting, the Convener must arrange for teleconference facilities to be provided for those unable to attend in person.

If the Eligible Person is an employee or designee of an OASIS Organizational Member, the Primary Representative of that organization must confirm to the Convener and to the TC Administrator that the person may become a Member of the TC.

Every Eligible Person who has so registered and been confirmed shall be a Member of the TC beginning with the first meeting. Every Eligible Person who has so registered, requested voting rights, been confirmed, and is present at the first meeting of a TC shall be a Voting Member of the TC beginning with the first meeting.

The first meeting of a TC must occur at the place and time and in the manner described in the announcement. Any initial meeting whose time or location is changed and any initial telephone or other electronic meeting that fails to grant access to every Eligible Person previously registering to attend shall be subject to appeal as provided in Section 4.2.

At least Minimum Membership must become Voting Members at the first TC meeting or the TC shall be considered not to have been successfully started and shall be closed.

At the first meeting the TC must elect a Chair as the first order of business, from among nominations made by Voting Members at that meeting. Once the Chair is elected the role of Convener ends.

2.4 TC Membership and Participation

TC membership is per person, not per organization, and is not transferable from person to person.

2.4.1 Observer: An Eligible Person may become an Observer of a TC by registering as an Observer using the electronic collaboration tools provided by OASIS. If the Eligible Person is an employee or designee of an OASIS Organizational Member, the Primary Representative of that organization must be notified that the person has requested to become an Observer. The Observer is not a TC Member so has no attendance or participation requirements to maintain this status, other than to remain an Eligible Person.

2.4.2 Member: Any time after the first meeting, an Eligible Person shall become a Member of an existing TC by registering as a Member using the electronic collaboration tools provided by OASIS. If the Eligible Person is an employee or designee of an OASIS Organizational Member, the Primary Representative of that organization must confirm to the Chair and to the TC Administrator that the person may become a Member of the TC. Upon receipt by the Chair of confirmation by the Primary Representative the Member may begin participating, but shall not have voting rights. A Member shall become eligible to vote in the TC when the requirements below are met.

2.4.3 Persistent Non-Voting Member: A Member or Voting Member may, at any time after joining a Technical Committee, send e-mail to both the Chair and the TC mailing list informing them of their change in membership status, effective as of the date of notice, or other specified future date. A Persistent Non-Voting Member retains participation rights but is not eligible to vote and does not count towards Quorum. A Persistent Non-Voting Member who wishes to gain voting rights must send e-mail to both the Chair and the TC mailing list informing them of their intent to become a Voting Member and must follow the rules in section 2.4.4(c) as if they had lost their voting rights due to non-attendance.

2.4.4 Voting Member:

(a) After the first Meeting of a TC, a Member shall gain voting rights at the close of the second consecutive Meeting attended by the Member or, if less than two Meetings are called within 60 days after the person becomes a Member, at the close of that 60th day. OASIS Individual Members and the representatives of OASIS Organizational Members are equally eligible to serve as Voting Members of a TC.

(b) A Voting Member must be active in a TC to maintain voting rights. In TCs that hold Meetings, a Voting Member who is absent from two consecutive Meetings (as recorded in the minutes) loses his or her voting rights at the end of the second Meeting missed. If a TC has adopted a standing rule to conduct business only by electronic ballot, without Meetings, then a Voting Member who fails to cast a ballot in two consecutive Work Product Ballots loses his or her voting rights at the close of the second ballot missed.

(c) A TC Member who has lost his or her voting rights shall regain them for a TC that holds Meetings by attending two consecutive Meetings (as recorded in the minutes), thus regaining voting rights after the end of the second Meeting attended or, if less than two Meetings are called within 60 days after the loss of such rights, at the close of that 60th day. A Member of a TC that does not hold Meetings may regain voting rights by making a request to the chair(s) to regain them, effective at the close of the 60th day after the request.

(d) Voting Members who lose their voting rights remain Members of the TC. A warning may be sent to the Member by the Chair, but the loss of voting rights is not dependent on the warning.

2.5 Termination of TC Membership

Except as provided in Section 2.6, membership in an OASIS TC shall be terminated under the following conditions:

(1) A Member shall be considered to have resigned from a TC upon his sending notification of resignation to the TC general email list.

(2) Persons who lose Eligible Person status for reasons including, but not limited to, change of employment shall have up to 15 days of TC membership as an OASIS Individual Member in which to request a Leave of Absence or re-establish eligibility. A Member shall lose TC membership on the 16th day after losing Eligible Person status or at the end of a Leave of Absence requested as specified in Section 2.6 if Eligible Person status has not been re-established.

Termination of membership in an OASIS TC shall automatically end voting rights in the TC as well as membership in any Subcommittee of that TC.

2.6 Leaves of Absence

Every Voting Member of an OASIS TC shall be entitled to at least one Leave of Absence during any one twelve month period. During a Leave of Absence, a Voting Member shall be exempt from the participation criteria specified in Section 2.4. A first Leave of Absence during any one twelve month period shall be obtained automatically by sending an email to both the Chair and the TC mailing list. The Chair must notify the TC of all Leaves of Absence by reporting them in the minutes of the TC’s next meeting.

A Voting Member who has already been granted a Leave of Absence during any twelve month period may apply for a maximum of one additional Leave of Absence during the same twelve month period, but a second Leave of Absence during any twelve month period shall be granted only upon formal Resolution of the TC.

A Voting Member of a TC who has been granted a Leave of Absence shall not have voting rights in the TC and all of its Subcommittees for the duration of the Leave; voting rights shall resume immediately upon the person returning from Leave.

The length of a Leave of Absence shall be specified in advance by the Voting Member requesting it and shall not exceed 45 days. A Leave of Absence shall begin no earlier than seven days after the date upon which the request was delivered to the Chair of the TC and shall end on the date specified, or at the beginning of the first TC meeting or Subcommittee meeting attended after the Leave begins, or upon transmittal of the first mail ballot returned after the Leave begins, whichever comes first. Time allocated for a Leave of Absence but not used due to early resumption of participation cannot be carried over into another Leave.

2.7 TC Chairs

Each TC must have a Chair. Only Members and Voting Members of the TC are eligible to be Chair or co-Chair. The TC Chair is initially elected at the first meeting. The Chair is elected by Full Majority Vote of the TC. If the TC does not have a Chair then all TC activities, with the exception of the selection of a new Chair, are suspended; if the TC does not have a Chair for 120 days, the TC Administrator must close the TC.

The responsibilities of Chair of a TC may be discharged by no more than two co-Chairs. In the event that the Chair position is so shared each co-Chair is equally responsible for the Chair duties and responsibilities. Throughout this TC Process, whenever a notification to the TC Chair is required this must be made to both co-Chairs.

A TC Chair may be removed by action of the Board of Directors or by a Special Majority Vote of the TC. In the event that a TC has co-Chairs each may be removed individually or both may be removed by a single action.

A vacancy in chairing a TC shall be deemed to exist when (i) the Chair or one or both co-Chairs has been removed, (ii) the Chair or one or both co-Chairs has resigned the position, or (iii) the Chair or one or both co-Chairs ceases to be a Member of the TC. Vacancies in chairing a TC shall be filled by election from the TC Members; the TC may elect at any time by vote to elect a co-Chair, if only one Chair is seated, or to leave a second seat vacant. Any TC chair or co-chair election shall be by Full Majority Vote of the TC, with each winning candidate having received a full majority vote regardless of the number of candidates.

The same provisions regarding Leaves of Absence shall apply to the Chair or co-Chair of a TC as to the other TC Members, and additionally the Chair must notify both the OASIS TC Administrator and the TC at least 30 days prior to any non-emergency Leave of Absence.

2.8 TC Visibility

The official copies of all resources of the TC and its associated Subcommittees, including web pages, documents, email lists and any other records of discussions, must be located only on facilities designated by OASIS. TCs and SCs may not conduct official business or technical discussions, store documents, or host web pages on servers or systems not designated by OASIS. All web pages, documents, ballot results and email archives of all TCs and SCs shall be publicly visible.

Mail Lists: Each TC shall be provided upon formation with a general discussion email list and a means to collect public comments. Subscription to the general email list shall be required for Members, Voting Members, Persistent Non-Voting Members and Observers of the TC.

The minutes of each TC meeting and a record of all decisions shall be posted to that TC’s general email list. All official communications and discussions of the TC must take place on the email list. All TC email lists shall be archived for the duration of the corporation, and all TC email archives shall be publicly visible.

The purpose of the TC’s public comment facility is to receive comments from the public and is not for public discussion. Comments shall be publicly archived, and shall be forwarded to one or more Members of the TC including the TC Chair. TCs shall not be required to respond to comments. Comments to the TC made by Members of the TC must be made via the TC general email list, and comments made by non-TC members, including from the public, must be made via the TC’s comment facility. Comments shall not be accepted via any other means.

Web Pages: The OASIS TC Administrator shall provide the TC with a publicly accessible web page. The TC must keep the following information current on the TC web page: the TC name and Charter; standing rules and other adopted procedures; meeting schedule; anticipated deliverables and delivery dates; list of TC Members; the name and email address of the TC Chair or co-Chairs as well as other positions such as secretary, editor, etc. that may exist; list of Subcommittees, their deliverables, and members; links to a repository of the draft and completed TC documents with identification of the latest versions of the TC’s Work Products; and a link to the IPR declarations for that TC.

Announcements: The OASIS TC Administrator shall create a publicly archived list for announcements from the OASIS TC Administrator regarding TCs. Any Eligible Person shall be able to subscribe to this list. Every important change in TC status shall be posted to the announcement list; such changes shall include but not be limited to the following: TC formation; TC Charter revision; start of Public Review; approval of Committee Specifications and Committee Notes; submission of a Committee Specification as a Candidate OASIS Standard; approval or rejection of a proposed OASIS Standard; and closure of a TC.

2.9 TC Procedure

The operation of TCs shall be governed by Robert’s Rules of Order Newly Revised, insofar as such rules are not inconsistent with or in conflict with this TC Process, the OASIS IPR Policy, the OASIS Bylaws, other Board-approved policies, or with provisions of law. The duration of a TC shall be considered a single session. Formal actions of TCs shall be governed by the same rules regardless of the language in which the work is taking place.

Standing rules may be adopted, amended, or rescinded by Full Majority Vote of the TC. The TC may not adopt standing rules or other Resolutions related to IPR, quorum requirements, membership, voting, participation, or that otherwise conflict with or supersede any OASIS Board-approved policy. Standing rules, and any amendments to them, must be communicated to the TC Administrator, who may rescind them if they are in conflict with OASIS policy, and, in order to be enforceable, must be posted on the TC’s web page.

2.10 TC Meetings

TC meetings must be properly called and scheduled in advance using the OASIS collaborative tools. Meetings scheduled or conducted in such a manner as to exclude the participation of any Member is subject to appeal. Meetings may be conducted face-to-face or via telephone conference or other electronic media that allow participation of all Members of the TC. In order to enable the openness of TC proceedings, meetings should be scheduled and conducted so as to permit the presence of as many TC Observers as is logistically feasible. Meeting minutes must be recorded and posted to the TC’s general email list and referenced on the TC web page.

Without a Quorum present discussions may take place but no business may be conducted; those present may act as a “Committee of the Whole” as defined in Robert’s Rules of Order Newly Revised, and make a report to the entire TC. Attendance must be recorded in the meeting minutes. Meetings without Quorum shall still count towards attendance for purposes of Members gaining, maintaining, or losing voting rights.

2.11 TC Charter Clarification

A TC may clarify its Charter only for the purpose of removing ambiguity or for narrowing the scope of the topic defined by the Charter. The TC may not broaden or otherwise change its scope of the topic of work. The list of deliverables may be expanded only if the new deliverables are within the scope of the topic.

Approval for clarification shall require a Special Majority Vote of the TC. The clarification of the Charter may occur no earlier than the first meeting of the TC. The TC Chair shall notify the TC Administrator that a motion has been made to clarify the Charter, and the TC Administrator shall set up and conduct the ballot.

The TC Administrator may prevent the proposed clarification from coming to vote if it is not in conformance with OASIS policies. The TC Administrator must within 15 days either open the ballot or reply to the TC with the reason why the change cannot be voted upon. The clarified Charter shall not take effect until approved and announced by the TC Administrator. The TC Administrator shall publicize approved changes as specified in Section 2.8 and any revisable publicly visible description (e.g., web page) promulgated by the TC shall be updated to reflect such changes.

2.12 TC Rechartering

In order to expand the scope of a TC, it must be rechartered. The TC shall retain the same name, all email lists and archives, web pages, etc. Contributions made to the TC under the prior charter must be recontributed to be used under the revised charter.

Rechartering shall not change the TC name nor the IPR Mode of the TC. If a different name or IPR Mode is desired then a new TC (with a unique name) must be formed and the normal rules for creating a new TC apply (see section 2.2).

A proposal to recharter the TC must be made by Resolution and submitted to the TC Administrator. The proposal shall follow the rules for a proposal to form a new TC as specified in section 2.2 excluding items 2(d) and 2(e).

The TC Administrator shall reply to the proposers within 15 days, and if the proposal is complete shall schedule a ballot. Approval for rechartering shall require a Special Majority Vote of the TC being rechartered.

Once the ballot has been approved, the following steps shall be taken:

1. Within five days of approval, the TC Administrator shall announce the rechartering to the OASIS Membership with a Call for Participation (including instructions for how and when to join the the newly rechartered TC) and an announcement of the first meeting in the same manner as for a new TC.
2. The TC may continue work until seven days before the first meeting under the new charter. Seven days before the first meeting, all work of the TC shall stop and the TC Administrator shall send an email to the TC mailing list describing the procedure for re-joining the TC and remove all Members and TC officers from the TC roster.
3. OASIS members wishing to (re)join the TC shall follow the normal procedures for joining a new TC. In the event that a member is not able to join in the seven day period before the first meeting, because of lack of online access, the member’s primary representative may ask the TC Administrator to add the member to the TC.

The same rules and procedures regarding the First Meeting of a TC specified under section 2.3 also apply for the first meeting of the rechartered TC, except as superseded in this section.

The time period for determining Members’ Participation Obligation shall restart at the first meeting of the TC under the revised charter.

2.13 TC Voting

TC votes require a Simple Majority Vote to pass, except as noted elsewhere in this Process. All TC ballots requiring a Special Majority Vote for approval must be conducted by the TC Administrator; the TC Chair shall notify the TC Administrator that a motion has been made which requires a Special Majority Vote, and the TC Administrator shall set up and conduct the ballot.

Eligibility: A Member of a TC must have voting rights to make or second a motion, and must have voting rights at the time a ballot is opened in order to vote on that ballot. Every Voting Member of a TC has a single vote. Organizations do not vote in TCs. Proxies shall not be allowed in TC voting.

Electronic Voting: TCs may conduct electronic ballots, either by using the TC’s general mail list or the publicly archived electronic voting functionality provided by OASIS. The minimum period allowed for electronic voting shall be seven days; the TC may specify a longer voting period for a particular electronic ballot. Any Work Product Ballot conducted as an electronic ballot must permit each voter to choose “yes”, “no” or “abstain.” Eligible voters may change their vote up until the end of the voting period.

A motion opening an electronic ballot must be made in a TC meeting or on the TC’s general email list. Motions made on the TC’s email list must also be seconded and discussed on that list.

2.14 TC Subcommittees

The TC may by Resolution create a Subcommittee (SC). The Resolution must be minuted, and must include the name, statement of purpose, list of deliverables, and name of the Chair of the SC. All of these items must fall within the Charter of the TC and conform to OASIS policy.

The deliverables of the SC are made only to the TC. Members of the SC must first be Members of the TC. Observers of a TC may be Observers of a SC, but may not become SC members without first becoming a Member of the TC. An SC member may resign from the SC and remain a Member of the TC.

The TC may close a Subcommittee (SC) by Resolution. The Resolution must be minuted, and must include the name of the Subcommittee.

2.15 Closing a TC

A TC may be closed by Full Majority Vote of the TC, by Resolution of the OASIS Board of Directors, or by the OASIS TC Administrator.

The TC Administrator must close a TC that has completed the deliverables listed in its Charter if the TC does not add new deliverables or that fails to elect a Chair for the period provided in Section 2.7.

The TC Administrator may close a TC that fails to conduct at least one Quorate Meeting or conduct any Work Product Ballots during any six month period; whose membership falls below the Minimum Membership; which has not completed its deliverables within the schedule listed in its Charter; or which has failed to show progress towards achieving its purpose as defined by its Charter.

2.16 Maintenance Activity of OASIS Standards Final Deliverables

(1) Only one TC at a time may perform a Maintenance Activity on an OASIS Standards Final Deliverable.

(2) Maintenance Activity on an OASIS Standards Final Deliverable is always within the scope of the TC that created the deliverable, whether or not the TC’s Charter explicitly references it.

(3) Maintenance Activity on an OASIS Standards Final Deliverable may be done by a TC other than the TC that originated the deliverable, if: (a) the name of the OASIS Standards Final Deliverable to be maintained is listed as a deliverable in its Charter, and (b) if the originating TC is not closed, it has consented to the Maintenance Activity by a Special Majority Vote.

2.17 Intellectual Property Rights Procedures

The TC shall operate in accordance with the OASIS Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Policy.

Notices of Disclosed Claims, as defined in and required by the OASIS IPR Policy, shall be made by sending an email message to the TC Administrator, who shall post the disclosure on the TC’s web page and notify the TC via the TC general email list. The TC shall make no formal decision with regard to the applicability or validity of an IPR disclosure.

Contributions, as defined in the OASIS IPR Policy, shall be made by sending to the TC’s general email list either the contribution, or a notice that the contribution has been delivered to the TC’s document repository; a URL or other reference to the document is not sufficient. Written contributions must be converted to electronic format and delivered to the TC’s general email list or document repository. The TC is not required to acknowledge or use any Contribution.

2.18 Work Product Quality

(1) General. All documents and other files produced by the TC, including Work Products at any level of approval, must use the OASIS file naming scheme, and must include the OASIS copyright notice. All document files must be written using the OASIS document authoring templates, which shall be maintained and made available by the TC Administrator. The name of any Work Product may not include any trademarks or service marks not owned by OASIS.

(2) Acknowledgements. Any Work Product that is approved by the TC at any level must include a list of people who participated in the development of the Work Product. This list shall be initially compiled by the Chair, and any Member of the TC may add or remove their names from the list by request.

(3) References. A Work Product that is approved by the TC at any level must clearly indicate whether each reference in the Work Product to a document or artifact is a Normative Reference.

(4) File Formats. Editable formats of all versions of TC documents must be delivered to the TC’s document repository. Working Drafts may be in any format (i.e. produced by any application). All approved versions of OASIS Deliverables must be delivered to the TC’s document repository in the (1) editable source, (2) HTML or XHTML, and (3) PDF formats; and the TC must explicitly designate one of those delivered formats as the authoritative document. Any links referenced by the TC shall be to the HTML, XHTML and/or PDF formats stored using repositories and domain names owned by OASIS and as approved by the TC Administrator.

(5) Multi-Part Work Products. A Work Product may be composed of any number of files of different types, though any such multi-part Work Product must have a single Work Product name and version number. Irrespective of the number and status of the constituent parts, the Work Product as a whole must be approved by a single Work Product Ballot.

(6) Allowed changes. Any change made to a Work Product requires a new version or revision number, except for changes made to (a) the approval status, (b) the date, (c) the URIs of the Work Product as appropriate, (d) the running header/footer, (e) updates to the file names of all Work Product files and any references between them, (f) any approved Designated Cross-Reference Changes, or (g) when a Committee Specification is approved as an OASIS Standard, and prior to its publication, any references to a Committee Specification may be updated if the referenced Committee Specification has subsequently been approved and published as an OASIS Standard. All of 6(a-g) must be made after the approval of the Work Product as a Committee Specification Draft, Committee Note, Committee Specification, Candidate OASIS Standard, or OASIS Standard and before its official publication by TC Administration.

(7) Computer Language Definitions. All normative computer language definitions that are part of the Work Product, such as XML instances, schemas and Java(TM) code, including fragments of such, must be well formed and valid.

(7a) For Standards Track Work Products:

• All normative computer language definitions must be provided in separate plain text files;
• Each text file must be referenced from the Work Product; and
• Where any definition in these separate files disagrees with the definition found in the specification, the definition in the separate file prevails.

(7b) For Non-Standards Track Work Products:

• All computer language definitions should be provided in separate plain text files; and
• Each text file should be referenced from the Work Product.

(8) Conformance Clauses.

(8a) For Standards Track Work Products:

A specification that is approved by the TC at the Committee Specification Public Review Draft, Committee Specification or OASIS Standard level must include a separate section, listing a set of numbered conformance clauses, to which any implementation of the specification must adhere in order to claim conformance to the specification (or any optional portion thereof).

(8b) For Non-Standards Track Work Products:

None required.

(9) Restrictions and Disclaimers.

Every Work Product must clearly indicate on the cover page whether it is a Standards Track Work Product or Non-Standards Track Work Product. The cover page of a Non-Standards Track Work Product must clearly and conspicuously state that the patent provisions of the IPR Policy do not apply to that Non-Standards Track Work Product.

Standards Track Work Products and Non-Standards Track Work Products must have clearly distinguishable templates and styling.

Documents which use formats that support headers and footers should indicate on every page whether the document is a Standards Track Work Product or Non-Standards Track Work Product. In these cases, every Non-Standards Track Work Product must also have a brief statement on every page that the patent provisions of the IPR Policy do not apply.

Non-Standards Track Work Products must not contain language that would otherwise fall within the definition of Normative Portion (were they subject to its provisions).

2.19 Designated Cross-Reference Changes

A TC wishing to update the Normative References or non-Normative References in the Normative References or Non-Normative References section in one of its OASIS Work Products to reflect the outcome of a pending status change in another OASIS Work Product may do so, by adopting a “Designated Cross-Reference Change” as part of its Work Product Approval Motion, which must include: (a) a list designating each of the other OASIS Work Products (including version number) that are referenced by that Work Product and whose cross-references should conditionally be updated; (b) a reference to this Section 2.19; and (c) an acknowledgement that approval and publication of the Work Product may be delayed by the Designated Cross-Reference Changes.

Designated Cross-Reference Changes may only be made on Work Product Approval Motions for Committee Specification Drafts, Public Review Drafts, Committee Specifications, and Candidate OASIS Standards. Designated Cross-Reference Changes may only be made for Work Products with the following pending status changes:

• Working Drafts to be approved as Committee Specification Drafts and/or
• Committee Specification Drafts to be approved as Public Review Drafts and/or
• Committee Specification Drafts or Public Review Drafts being approved as Committee Specifications and/or
• Committee Specifications being approved as Candidate OASIS Standards and/or
• Candidate OASIS Standards being approved as OASIS Standards.

Designated Cross-Reference Changes may not be made to any OASIS Work Product changing its version or revision number nor to any non-OASIS standard or publication.

The text of a proposed Designated Cross-Reference Change to a Work Product shall only include for each cross-referenced Work Product:

• the current name, version and revision number;
• the current URI;
• the expected approval status; and
• the expected approval date of the cross-referenced Work Product.

The effectiveness of a proposed Designated Cross-Reference Change in a Work Product is conditioned on the resolution of the expected approval action for each cross-referenced Work Product. Therefore, if a Work Product Approval Motion includes proposed Designated Cross-Reference Changes, the effectiveness of the subject Work Product’s approval will be delayed until the resolution of all other cross-referenced Work Product approval actions. The TC Administrator will withhold announcement and certification of the Work Product itself until all such cross-referenced resolutions are complete.

If the Work Product Approval Motion (which includes Designated Cross-Reference Changes) passes, then, when the last cross-referenced approval is resolved, the final approved version will be published with all of its conditional descriptions of the cross-referenced Work Products updated to reflect their correct status at that time.

2.20 Commercial Terms and Conditions

Provisions involving business relations between buyer and seller such as guarantees, warranties, and other commercial terms and conditions shall not be included in an OASIS Standard. The appearance that a standard endorses any particular products, services or companies must be avoided. Therefore, it generally is not acceptable to include manufacturer lists, service provider lists, or similar material in the text of a standard or in an annex (or the equivalent). Where a sole source exists for essential equipment, materials or services necessary to comply with or to determine compliance with the standard, it is permissible to supply the name and address of the source in a footnote or informative annex as long as the words “or the equivalent” are added to the reference. In connection with standards that relate to the determination of whether products or services conform to one or more standards, the process or criteria for determining conformity can be standardized as long as the description of the process or criteria is limited to technical and engineering concerns and does not include what would otherwise be a commercial term.

Section 3. Approval Process

3.0 Introduction

Aside from approving Administrative Documents, the only document approvals a TC may validly perform are described in this Section.

Standards Track Work Products progress as follows:

1. Committee Specification Draft,
2. Committee Specification Public Review Draft,
3. Committee Specification,
4. Candidate OASIS Standard,
5. OASIS Standard,
6. Approved Errata.

Each of the progressions above must begin with step 1, and no step may be skipped. However a TC is not required to progress a Work Product from one step to the next.

Non-Standards Track Work Products may directly be approved as Committee Notes by the Technical Committees via a Full Majority vote.

Public reviews are optional for Committee Notes. If a TC wishes to conduct public reviews before approving a Committee Note, the same procedures for approving a Committee Specification (as outlined in section 3.1, section 3.2 and section 3.3) and a similar terminology used for the intermediate drafts of the Committee Specifications (i.e. Committee Note Draft and Committee Note Public Review Draft) must be followed.

Note that a Committee Note is never progressed as an OASIS standard.

After approving a Committee Note, a Technical Committee may notify the TC Administrator for publishing the Committee Note to the OASIS Library and announcing its publication to the OASIS membership.

3.1 Approval of a Committee Draft

The TC may at any stage during development of a Work Product approve a Working Draft as a Committee Specification Draft. Approval of these drafts shall require a Full Majority Vote of the TC. The TC may approve a Working Draft, revise it, and re-approve it any number of times as a Committee Specification Draft

3.2 Public Review of a Committee Draft

Before the TC can approve a Committee Specification Draft as a Committee Specification, the TC must conduct a public review of the work. The decision by the TC to submit the draft for public review requires a Full Majority Vote, and must be accompanied by a recommendation from the TC of external stakeholders who should be notified of the review. The draft approved to go to review shall be called a Committee Specification Public Review Draft. The public review must be announced by the TC Administrator to the OASIS Membership list and optionally on other public mail lists; the TC Administrator shall at the same time issue a call for IPR disclosure for Committee Specification Public Review Drafts.

Comments from non-TC Members must be collected via the TC’s archived public comment facility; comments made through any other means (unless made by a TC Member via the TC email list) shall not be accepted. The TC must acknowledge the receipt of each comment, track the comments received, and post to its primary e-mail list its disposition of each comment at the end of the review period.

No changes may be made to the public review draft during a review. If the TC decides by Full Majority Vote that changes are required, the draft shall be withdrawn from review after the Chair informs the TC Administrator, and then subsequently resubmitted by the TC for a new Public Review cycle of the same type, either initial or subsequent.

The TC may conduct any number of review cycles (e.g. approval to send a Committee Specification Draft to public review, collecting comments, making edits to the Committee Specification Draft, etc.). The initial public review of a public review draft must take place for a minimum of 30 days, and any subsequent reviews must be held for a minimum of 15 days. Changes made to a committee draft after a review must be clearly identified in any subsequent review, and the subsequent review shall be limited in scope to changes made in the previous review. Before starting another review cycle the revisions must be re-approved as a Committee Specification Draft and then approved to go to public review by the TC.

If any changes that are not Non-Material are made to the draft after the public review, whether as a result of public review comments or from TC Member input, then the TC must conduct another review cycle. The draft may not be considered for approval by the TC as a Committee Specification until it has undergone a review cycle during which it has received no comments that result in any changes that are not Non-Material.

If only Non-Material Changes are made to the draft after the public review, whether as a result of public review comments or from TC Member input, then the TC may proceed with the approval as a Committee Specification in accordance with Section 3.3 without conducting another public review cycle.

3.3 Approval of a Committee Specification

After the public review, the TC may approve the Committee Specification Draft as a Committee Specification If any comments have been received during the most recent Public Review period, that vote may not commence any earlier than 7 days after the last day of that Public Review. The approval of a Committee Specification shall require a Special Majority Vote. The TC Chair shall notify the TC Administrator that the TC has resolved to request a Special Majority Vote for the advancement of the draft as a Committee Specification and provide to the TC Administrator the URI for the meeting minutes which record the TC’s resolution, including the location of the editable versions of the files and any other ballot details (for example, Designated Cross-Reference Change motions). The TC Administrator shall set up and conduct the ballot to approve the Committee Specification

If Non-Material Changes have been made to the draft since its last public review then the TC must provide an acceptable summary that is clear and comprehensible of the changes made since the last public review and a statement that the changes are all Non-Material to TC Administration. TC Administration shall announce the opening of the ballot to approve the draft to the OASIS Membership and optionally on other public mail lists along with the summary of changes and the TC’s statement. If any Eligible Person objects that the changes are not Non-Material before the ballot closes, TC Administration shall halt the ballot and require the TC to submit the draft for another public review cycle. If such objection is made after the ballot has closed, TC Administration shall reject it and the results of the ballot shall stand.

3.4 Approval of an OASIS Standard

Approval of an OASIS Standard is a multi-step process:

1. Submission of a Candidate OASIS Standard to the TC Administrator,
2. Completion of a public review lasting a minimum of 60 days, and
3. A membership-wide ballot.
4. A potential single, second membership-wide ballot to address negative comments.

3.4.1 Submission of a Candidate OASIS Standard

After the approval of a Committee Specification, and after three Statements of Use referencing the Committee Specification have been presented to the TC, a TC may resolve by Special Majority Vote to submit the Committee Specification as a Candidate OASIS Standard. At least one of the Statements of Use must come from an OASIS Organizational Member. The TC may decide to withdraw the submission, by Special Majority Vote, at any time until the final approval. Upon Resolution of the TC to submit the specification, its Chair shall submit the following items to the TC Administrator:

(a) Links to the Candidate OASIS Standard in the TC’s document repository, and any appropriate supplemental documentation, all of which must be written using the OASIS templates in effect at the time of the Committee Specification approval vote. The specification must not have been changed between its approval as a Committee Specification and its submission to OASIS for consideration as an OASIS Standard, except for the changes allowed in Section 2.18(6).

(b) The editable version of all files that are part of the Candidate OASIS Standard;

(c) Certification by the TC that all schema and XML instances included in the specification, whether by inclusion or reference, including fragments of such, are well formed, and that all expressions are valid;

(d) A clear English-language summary of the specification;

(e) A statement regarding the relationship of this specification to similar work of other OASIS TCs or other standards developing organizations;

(f) The Statements of Use presented above;

(g) The beginning and ending dates of the public review(s), a pointer to the announcement of the public review(s), and a pointer to an account of each of the comments/issues raised during the public review period(s), along with its resolution;

(h) An account of and results of the voting to approve the specification as a Candidate OASIS Standard, including the date of the ballot and a pointer to the ballot;

(i) An account of or pointer to votes and comments received in any earlier attempts to standardize substantially the same specification, together with the originating TC’s response to each comment;

(j) A pointer to the publicly visible comments archive for the originating TC; and

(k) The length of the Candidate OASIS Standard public review, if greater than the required 60 days.

The TC Administrator shall complete administrative processing and checking for completeness and correctness of the submission within 15 days. If the submission is incomplete it shall be rejected but may be resubmitted at a later time.

No part of the submission may be changed or altered in any way after being submitted to the TC Administrator, including by Errata or corrigenda. Errata, corrigenda or other changes to an OASIS Standard are not permitted after its submission for OASIS Standard approval, except that changes which address comments associated with negative votes on an OASIS Standard may be allowed as described in section 3.4.4 below.

3.4.2 Public Review of a Candidate OASIS Standard

A public review of the Candidate OASIS Standard shall be announced by the TC Administrator to the OASIS Membership list and optionally on other public mail lists.

Comments from non-TC Members must be collected via the TC’s archived public comment facility; comments made through any other means (unless made by a TC Member via the TC email list) shall not be accepted. The TC must acknowledge the receipt of each comment, track the comments received, and post to its primary e-mail list the disposition of each comment at the end of the review period.

No changes may be made to the Candidate OASIS Standard during a review. If the TC decides by Full Majority Vote that changes are needed, then the specification must be withdrawn from review after the Chair informs the TC Administrator.

Upon completion of the public review, the Chair must notify the TC Administrator of the results.

• If no comments were received, the TC Administrator must start the ballot for OASIS Standard approval within 7 days of notification.
• If comments were received, but no changes are to be made to the Candidate OASIS Standard, the Chair will request that the TC Administrator start a Special Majority Ballot for the TC to approve continuing with the OASIS Standard ballot. The TC Administrator will begin said ballot within 7 days of receipt. Upon successful completion of that ballot, the TC Administrator will, within 7 days, begin the ballot for OASIS Standard approval.
• If comments were received and only Non-Material Changes are to be made to the Candidate OASIS Standard, the editor(s) will prepare a revised Candidate OASIS Standard. Changes may only be made to address the comments. The TC must provide an acceptable summary that is clear and comprehensible of the changes made and a statement that the TC judges the changes to be Non-Material to TC Administration and request a Special Majority Vote to proceed with the membership vote. TC Administration shall hold the Special Majority Vote and announce it to the OASIS membership and optionally on other public mail lists along with the summary of changes and the TC’s statement. If the Special Majority Vote passes, the TC Administrator must start the ballot for OASIS Standard approval within 7 days of notification.
• If comments were received and Substantive Changes are to be made to the Candidate OASIS Standard, the editors(s) will prepare a revised specification to be approved as a Committee Specification Draft by the TC and proceed with a subsequent Public Review as noted in Section 3.2. Before resubmission the specification must be approved as a Committee Specification.

3.4.3 Initial Balloting for OASIS Standard approval

In votes upon Candidate OASIS Standards, each OASIS Organizational Member at the time the ballot is issued shall be entitled to cast one vote. Votes shall be cast via the publicly archived electronic voting facility supplied by OASIS. A ballot announcement will be sent to each member entitled to vote and shall specify the ballot closing date and time. Ballots shall be publicly visible during voting. Eligible voters may change their vote up until the end of the 14-day voting period. The results of a vote on a proposed standard shall be provided to the membership and to the TC no later than seven days following the close of the voting period.

If at the end of the voting period:

1. if at least 15 percent of the voting OASIS Membership has voted to approve the proposed standard, and if no votes have been cast to disapprove the proposed standard, it shall become an OASIS Standard immediately following the end of the voting period; or
2. if negative votes have been cast amounting to 25 percent or more of the votes cast, or if less than 15 percent of the voting OASIS Membership has cast positive votes to approve the proposed standard, the ballot is deemed to have failed and the submission fails; or
3. if negative votes are cast amounting to less than 25 percent of the votes that have been cast, the TC shall be notified of the negative votes, after which the TC shall have 30 days to take one of the following actions by Resolution of a Special Majority Vote: (a) request the TC Administrator to approve the specification as submitted despite the negative votes; (b) withdraw the submission entirely; or (c) provide a submission amended to address negative votes as noted in section 3.4.4 below. If the originating TC upon notification of negative votes takes no formal action within the 30 days allocated for consideration of the results, then the specification shall not become an OASIS Standard.

Failure of a ballot for any reason shall not prevent a later version of the same specification from being submitted again as specified in this section 3.4.

3.4.4 Subsequent Ballot for OASIS Standard approval

An amended submission of a Candidate OASIS Standard may only be made once. There is no public review associated with this amended submission.

The TC shall have 30 days in which to approve the amended submission by Special Majority Vote and submit the amended Candidate OASIS Standard as specified in 3.4.1 above. The amended submission must be accompanied by an explanatory report listing all changes (and their rationale) made to the submission since the previous Candidate OASIS Submission vote, and additionally include a resolution report showing the disposition of all comments received during that first vote.

At the end of the Candidate OASIS Standard vote on the amended submission:

1. if at least 15 percent of the voting OASIS Membership has voted to approve the proposed standard, and if no votes have been cast to disapprove the proposed standard, it shall become an OASIS Standard immediately following the end of the voting period; or
2. if negative votes have been cast amounting to 25 percent or more of the votes cast, or if less than 15 percent of the voting OASIS Membership has cast positive votes to approve the proposed standard, the ballot is deemed to have failed and the submission fails; or
3. if the amended submission receives negative votes amounting to less than 25 percent of the votes that have been cast, the TC shall be notified of the negative votes, after which the TC shall have 30 days to request, by Special Majority Vote, that the TC Administrator approve the specification as submitted despite the negative votes. If the TC, upon notification of negative votes, takes no formal action in this period to request approval, then the specification shall not become an OASIS Standard.

Failure of this subsequent ballot for any reason shall not prevent a later version of the same specification from being submitted again as specified in this section 3.4.

3.5 Approved Errata

A TC may approve a set of Errata to an OASIS Standard which it developed as “Approved Errata” by:

(a) Adopting the set of proposed corrections as a Committee Specification Draft, in the form of a list of changes, and optionally accompanied by a copy of the original OASIS Standard text marked to incorporate the proposed changes.

(b) Confirming by Full Majority Vote that the proposed corrections do not constitute a Substantive Change.

(c) Submitting the proposed corrections for a 15-day public review, and completing that review, pursuant to Section 3.2.

(d) After the public review, confirming the proposed corrections as Approved Errata by a Full Majority Vote.

Once approved, the Approved Errata shall be made available with the OASIS Standard it corrects, in any publication of that OASIS Standard. Disposition of Approved Errata must be identified in the subsequent Committee Specification Public Review Draft of the corrected OASIS Standard.

A TC may not adopt Approved Errata to an OASIS Standard more than once in any six-month period.

Section 4. Board of Directors Involvement in the TC Process

4.1 OASIS TC Administrator

The “OASIS TC Administrator,” as defined in Section 1 of this TC Process, shall act as the Technical Committee Liaison to the Board for the purpose of keeping the Board apprised of activities related to the TC Process. The specific duties of the TC Liaison shall be specified by the Board in consultation with the TC Administrator but shall, at a minimum, provide for the submission to the Board of a notice when a proposal has been received for the creation of a new TC and when a TC submits a Committee Specification as a Candidate OASIS Standard. Such notice shall be delivered via email to the Board immediately upon the receipt of the submission by the TC Administrator. The TC Administrator shall also send a copy of proposals for the creation of new TCs to the Technical Advisory Board (TAB) for their comment.

Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in this TC Process, upon majority vote of the members of the Board at a meeting thereof duly called and constituted, the creation of a new TC may be prevented, or a proposed OASIS Standard may be withheld from voting by OASIS Membership; the proposal or the submission shall be returned to the proposers or the sponsoring TC for additional consideration, with an explanation of the reasons for such action.

The Board of Directors may amend this TC Process at any time and from time to time at its sole discretion.

4.2 Appeals

Any Eligible Person who believes that

• an action taken or not taken by or with respect to TCs, or
• an action taken or not taken by the TC Administrator,

is in violation of the procedures set forth in this TC Process or OASIS policies specified by the OASIS Board of Directors, may appeal such action or inaction.

Appellants shall file a complaint within 30 days of the action being appealed or at any time with respect to an inaction. The complaint shall state the nature of the objection(s), including any direct and material adverse effects upon the appellants; the section(s) of this TC Process or OASIS policies at issue; the actions or inactions at issue; and the specific remedial action(s) that would satisfy the appellants’ concerns. Previous efforts to resolve the objection(s) and the outcome of each shall be noted.

Appeals regarding actions or inactions of a TC must be made to the TC Administrator.

Appeals regarding actions or inactions of the TC Administrator must be made to the OASIS Board of Directors.

In the case of an appeal to the TC Administrator: within 15 days of receipt of the complaint, the TC Administrator shall provide a copy of the complaint to the TC; and within 30 days of such receipt, shall render a decision, with a copy to the TC.

In the case of an appeal to the OASIS Board of Directors: such appeal, in order to be valid, shall be sent to the board comment list (oasis-board-comment@lists.oasis-open.org) and the relevant TC(s). The Board shall hold a hearing (with the appellants invited) within 45 days of receipt of the appeal. The Board shall render its decision within 30 days. The decision of the Board shall be final.

The OASIS Board of Directors has the authority to effect such remedial action as may be necessary to remedy a complaint brought under this TC Process.

Section 5. Application to Existing TCs

This TC Process applies to previously established TCs upon its adoption.

Dates Approved:  Thu, 2014-04-24 Effective:  Thu, 2014-05-01

Table of contents

Organizational Liaisons Establishing org-to-org liaisons Representative Guidelines Policy for submitting OASIS work to other organizations TC Liaisons Liaisons to the TC Fee-waived membership grants

Organizational Liaisons

Establishing org-to-org liaisons

A liaison relationship is defined as OASIS obtaining membership in another organization, or entering into any other liaison relationship or joint agreement such as an MoU, Letter of Intent, Cooperation Agreement, etc. (Other organizations seeking membership in OASIS under standard OASIS membership policies is not covered by this policy.)

Only the OASIS President has the authority to negotiate a liaison relationship with another organization.

The request to establish a liaison or membership with another organization should be submitted to the President, and may originate with the request from the external organization, the OASIS Board of Directors, a Technical Committee (TC), the Technical Advisory Board (TAB), or OASIS staff. The request to the President should include the following:

• Who is the other organization, what do they do, and what is the nature of the relationship suggested? (e.g. is it suggested that OASIS join the other organization and at what level, or vice versa.)
• What are the benefits to OASIS of this relationship? What are the goals of OASIS in the relationship?
• Which particular activities (technical committees, member sections, etc.) at OASIS would be affected by the relationship? What effect will it have on them, and what level of involvement should be expected from them?
• What are the benefits to the other organization of this relationship? What are the goals of the other organization in the relationship?
• What is the risk of negative impact on OASIS?
• What liaison representation would OASIS be expected to send?
• What are the costs, obligations, and responsibilities to OASIS and/or its TCs?

The OASIS President will, based on the above items, decide whether to establish the liaison relationship, and what the nature of the relationship should be. The OASIS President will submit this decision and the justification of the decision (including a summary document with the answers to the above questions) to the Board of Directors for their review and comment. If, after consultation with the Board, the President approves establishment of the Liaison, and if the Board of Directors approves the MoU, Letter of Intent, Cooperation Agreement, Membership Agreement, or any other document that the President must sign in order for the relationship to be established, the OASIS President and staff will then proceed to establish the relationship. Once the relationship is established, a liaison representative to the other organization will be selected as required, and tasked as outlined in section below.

The OASIS President will provide a quarterly status report to the OASIS Board including an update on all the information mentioned above for each liaison. The report will include a detailed plan of actions for at least the top five inter-organization liaisons that involve OASIS resource commitments (OASIS staff, members, etc.).

Representative Guidelines

In most cases where OASIS has established a liaison relationship with another organization OASIS will have the opportunity to send technical or liaison representatives to that other organization. As the person is representing OASIS, he or she should be selected by OASIS and should be given specific instructions so that OASIS will gain the most benefit from the representation. (For the case of a person representing a single TC, see the section below on TC liaisons.)

Selection of the representative and definition of scope/mission

The OASIS representative will be selected and given a scope/mission as follows:

1. The OASIS President establishes the liaison relationship as described above, and determines that a representative is required to maintain the relationship.
2. The OASIS President asks OASIS staff, Board, or TAB to make recommendations regarding the qualifications of the representative and to suggest possible candidates. The person could be OASIS staff, a Board Member, a TAB member, a TC chair, any other OASIS member, or other designated person.
3. The TAB or OASIS management drafts the scope/mission of the liaison representative. The assignment scope should include such things as
   1. Length of assignment
   2. Frequency of assignment activities (conference calls, meetings, etc.)
   3. Who is responsible for any travel expenses (OASIS or the representative’s company)
   4. What technical agenda the representative should pursue (are they expected to influence the other organization’s work, provide info on OASIS work, or just report on the activities of the other organization)
   5. What, if any, decisions the person is allowed to make
   6. What information they report and to whom
   7. Who at OASIS do they report to and who provides them with direction and feedback
4. The TAB or OASIS management recommends the person to the OASIS Board.
5. The Board approves the recommendation.
6. OASIS management then extends an invitation to the approved liaison representative.

Managing the Representative

In order for OASIS to get the most benefit from having a representative to another organization, the representative should be expected to report back to OASIS so that having a liaison representative results in two-way communication.

OASIS management will manage the representative to ensure that he or she is properly representing OASIS, and that OASIS is receiving regular reports from the other organization. OASIS management should speak at least monthly with the representative.

The representative will also be expected to communicate regularly with OASIS TCs and/or member sections that are effected by the liaison relationship.

Policy for submitting OASIS Standards for adoption by other organizations

OASIS members may wish to have OASIS Standards submitted to other standards organizations for approval under their separate processes. The following provisions govern these submissions. Terms defined in the OASIS TC Process are used here as defined therein.

1. Submission requirements.

   Submissions of OASIS Standards to other standards organizations may be made if all of the following requirements are satisfied. The OASIS Board of Directors must approve any deviations from these requirements.

   1. The proposed submission is an OASIS Standard.
   2. The receiving standards organization is a de jure standards authority, preferably global in geographic scope.
   3. A written submission request to submit the OASIS Standard, as specified in Section 2, is submitted to the President by any one of the parties described in the following options:
      1. Open TC. If the Technical Committee that originally developed the OASIS Standard is open (not closed), there are the following two options:
         1. If (1) there is a Member Section with which the TC is affiliated or was so affiliated at the time that the respective OASIS Standard was finally approved; and (2) that Member Section is open; and (3) the Rules of Procedure of that Member Section require that the external submission request be approved by the Member Section’s Steering Committee: then that Steering Committee may submit the request, after approving a motion to do so, if the TC has previously approved a motion to submit the request by a Special Majority Vote.
         2. If there is no such Member Section, then the TC may submit the request, after approving a motion to do so by a Special Majority Vote.
      2. Closed TC. If the Technical Committee that originally developed the OASIS Standard is closed, there are the following two options:
         1. If (1) there is a Member Section with which the TC was affiliated at the time that the respective OASIS Standard was finally approved; and (2) that Member Section is open; and (3) the Rules of Procedure of that Member Section require that the external submission request be approved by the Member Section’s Steering Committee: then that Steering Committee may submit the request, after approving a motion to do so.
         2. Otherwise, then a minimum of five OASIS Organizational Members may submit the request.
2. Written submission request.

   Any submission request delivered to the OASIS President under this policy must be in writing, and must include the following:

   1. The name(s) of the submission requester(s), that is, the TC, the Member Section, or the OASIS Organizational Members that support the submission request as described in section 1(d).
   2. The name of the intended receiving standards organization. The request may also suggest the committee or group in that organization which should process that submission.
   3. The intended status or outcome that the request seeks from the receiving organization’s process; and a short description of the receiving organization’s approval process, including estimated time required, stages of approval and who votes at each stage.
   4. An explanation of how the submission will benefit OASIS.
   5. The expected licensing, copyright and other intellectual property terms that will be used by the receiving organization in regard to the submission.
   6. A statement of the intended future plans for versioning and maintenance of the OASIS Standard and/or Approved Errata for that standard, and the expected roles of OASIS and the receiving organization. This must include clear statements of the rules of the receiving organization applicable to maintenance of an approved submitted standard, and to future versions of that standard; any requirements regarding the submission of future versions; and a description of how OASIS and the submission requesters expect to comply with those rules.
3. Submission request processing.
   1. In case the submission request is being submitted by a number of OASIS Organizational Members as described in section 1(d)(ii)(B), the Primary Representatives of these OASIS Members must confirm the submission request.
   2. The OASIS President shall have 15 days after receipt of the submission request to confirm the completeness of the request. No later than the 15th day after receiving it, the President shall either return the request to the requesters with an explanation indicating its failure to meet the requirements set forth in section 2, or shall post notice of the submission request to an announced mailing list (or equivalent method) visible to the requesters and all OASIS Members, for comment. The notice will announce that comments are invited to be sent to that list for a period of 30 days after the review notice is posted.
   3. At the end of that 30 day comment period, the President shall have up to 15 days to approve or reject the submission request. No later than the 15th day after the last day of the comment period, the President shall transmit a notice of that decision in writing to the submission requesters and all OASIS Members.
   4. The President shall not approve any request that does not meet the criteria listed in Sections 1 and 2.
   5. If the request is approved, the President shall transmit the submission to the receiving organization, and commit OASIS to the submission process, no earlier than the 15th day after the notice of decision is transmitted to the submission requesters and OASIS members, and no later than the 45th day thereafter.
   6. The President may approve the request with changes to the proposed submission method, schedule or designated receiving organization. Any such changes made to those terms shall be reported in the notice of decision transmitted to the submission requesters and OASIS Members.
   7. Any OASIS member may appeal the President’s approval or rejection of a proposed submission, or changes made to its terms, in the manner provided in Section 6.
4. Submission terms with receiving organization.

   The OASIS President must ensure that the terms of an approved submission request cannot result in multiple divergent versions of the submitted standard. The OASIS copyright should remain on the standard when it is published by the other organization, i.e. both OASIS’ and the other organization’s copyright will appear on the standard, but this copyright requirement can be waived by the OASIS President as long as:

   1. The other organization agrees that only OASIS will continue to maintain and modify the standard until OASIS notifies the other organization that it waives that right;
   2. OASIS can continue to publish the OASIS-copyrighted version of the specification under its copyright and distribution policy.

   The OASIS President must arrange for appropriate acknowledgement, in a written acceptance, an applicable set of rules, a signed memorandum of understanding or other appropriate written form, that the above items are mutually understood between OASIS and the receiving organization.

5. Maintenance and errata.

   Once an initial OASIS Standard has been submitted according to the terms of this policy and approved by a receiving organization, then:

   1. Approved Errata. OASIS shall submit any Approved Errata to the approved standard to the same receiving organization, if it still accepts submissions. No request or approval is required. The President will confer with any TC and Member Section with the right to vote on the standard’s submission, in his or her preparation of the submission.
   2. Subsequent Versions. When a new version of an OASIS Standard, which has been submitted to and approved by a receiving organization, itself is approved as an OASIS Standard, the submission of the new version requires a new submission request in accordance with this policy. If a TC agreed to submit future versions, in the approved terms of the original submission, but then later withdraws its commitment or fails to request submission of the new OASIS Standard version, then the President may elect to submit that new version nevertheless, but must so notify the TC, OASIS Members and the Board of Directors. In such cases, the President must provide a copy of the proposed submission terms, so as to permit an appeal; and that submission and any commitment shall be made no sooner than the 15th day after that notification.
   3. Exchange of Comments and Proposed Corrections. OASIS and, if it is open, the TC that originally developed the approved OASIS Standard, may periodically share with the receiving organization any interim corrections and comments it receives on that standard. If OASIS and the receiving organization choose to maintain shared lists or joint repositories of that interim data, without issuing a new approved version, that activity will not constitute a separate submission, for purposes of this policy, so long as the requirements of Section 4 continue to be met.
6. Appeal.
   1. Any OASIS Member may appeal a decision of the President described in Section 3, 4 or 5 above, within 30 days of the decision, by delivering a complaint to the OASIS Board of Directors, stating the decision at issue, the nature and reasons for the objection(s), and the outcomes desired. If such an appeal is received, the President shall take no further action on the submission at issue until the Board has rendered a decision on the appeal. In order to be valid, such appeal shall be sent to the Board comment list (oasis-board-comment@lists.oasis-open.org).
   2. Within 7 days of receipt of the complaint, the Chairman of the Board shall provide a copy of the complaint to the requesters of the submission at issue. The Board shall hold a hearing (with the appellants invited) within 45 days of receipt of the appeal. The Board shall render its decision within 30 days. The decision of the Board shall be final.
   3. The OASIS Board of Directors has the authority to effect such remedial action as may be necessary to remedy a complaint brought under this policy.

Liaisons to a Technical Committee or Member Section

An OASIS TC or MS may desire to have a relationship with a working group or technical committee of another organization, by having one or more persons act as liaison representative(s) between the two groups. The selection of the liaison and any invitation to other organizations to provide a liaison should be by vote of the relevant TC or the Steering Committee of the relevant MS. The selection of the liaison must be communicated to the OASIS President, and the liaison must be listed on the web page of the TC or MS. A TC may form a liaison subcommittee as required to help the TC coordinate its various liaison relationships; an MS may do so, to the extent consistent with the OASIS Member Section Policy and its own Rules of Procedure.

Ideally a liaison relationship is accomplished by selecting a person who is a member of both the OASIS TC or MS, as well as the working group of the other organization to communicate between the two. If such a dual-membership person is not available or is not the right person for this role then the TC or MS may ask one of its own members to join the other organization, or recruit a member of the other organization to join OASIS and that TC or MS. If the latter, then the prospective liaison must become an Eligible Person (as defined in the OASIS TC Process), by joining OASIS in an appropriate membership class, in order to give the person eligibility to join the TC or MS in accordance with OASIS membership policies.

While a TC or MS liaison has been asked by the TC or MS to represent its interests in the work of the other organization, that person does not officially represent OASIS, and cannot speak for or obligate OASIS in any way. Only persons appointed as an organizational liaison representative as described above may represent the consortium.

The TC or MS liaison’s participation in the other organization is governed by that other organization’s membership agreement, rules, and procedures. That person acts as a member of that organization, and so. must, for example, follow the other organization’s rules concerning confidentiality when sharing that organizations’ information with the OASIS TC or MS.

OASIS has no class of membership for an “invited expert.” To participate in an OASIS TC or MS, a person must become eligible as described in the OASIS membership policies, OASIS TC Process, and OASIS Member Section Policy.

If the desired organization or person is unable to pay the membership fee to join OASIS, the TC or MS may petition the OASIS President to grant a fee-waived, one-year, Individual or Associate membership to the person, as described below.

Fee-waived membership grants

On some occasions it is in the best interests of OASIS to grant fee-waived membership to people or other organizations for the purpose of furthering the work of OASIS. OASIS will grant membership based on the criteria of OASIS gaining benefit from having the other organization or person as a member of or participant in the activities of OASIS. The OASIS President may grant any level of OASIS membership to a person or organization. The grant will be for a fee-waived, one-year membership at a particular membership level. The member will have all of the rights associated with that level of membership. The level granted will be selected based upon the intended level of participation of the person or organization, including

• whether the person or organization needs participation at only the TC or MS level, or also voting at the OASIS-wide level;
• whether the person or organization needs to be included in OASIS press releases;
• the number of participants from the organization in OASIS technical activities; and
• whether the other organization has or will in exchange grant OASIS membership in their organization, what rights that membership gives OASIS, and what use OASIS will make of this membership.

All membership levels may be granted on a fee-waived, one-year basis by the OASIS President. The fee-waived memberships will be re-evaluated annually based on the same criteria.

Dates Approved:  Wed, 2013-07-31 Effective:  Wed, 2013-07-31

Table of Contents

1. Definitions 2. Technical Committees 2.1 TC Discussion Lists 2.2 TC Formation 2.3 First Meeting of a TC 2.4 TC Membership and Participation 2.5 Termination of TC Membership 2.6 Leaves of Absence 2.7 TC Chairs 2.8 TC Visibility 2.9 TC Procedure 2.10 TC Meetings 2.11 TC Charter Clarification 2.12 TC Rechartering 2.13 TC Voting 2.14 TC Subcommittees 2.15 Closing a TC 2.16 Maintenance Activity of OASIS Standards Final Deliverables 2.17 Intellectual Property Rights Procedures 2.18 Work Product Quality 2.19 Designated Cross-Reference Changes 3. Approval Process 3.1 Approval of a Committee Draft 3.2 Public Review of a Committee Draft 3.3 Approval of a Committee Specification or Committee Note 3.4 Approval of an OASIS Standard 3.5 Approved Errata 4. Board of Directors Involvement in the TC Process 4.1 OASIS TC Administrator 4.2 Appeals 5. Application to Existing TCs

Section 1. Definitions

1. “Administrative Document” is a document which is used by a TC only in support of internal operations such as minutes, agenda, liaison statements, issue lists, bug lists, etc. and which are not an OASIS Deliverable. An Administrative Document must not use a Work Product template. Inter-group communications to request review, respond to review comments, or to respond to questions or requests for clarifications are considered to be Administrative Documents.
2. “Approved Errata” shall have the meaning defined in Section 3.5.
3. “Candidate OASIS Standard” is a document that has been submitted for approval as an OASIS Standard as specified in Section 3.4.
4. “Charter” is the organizational document for a TC comprised of the items included in the proposal to form that TC, as defined in Section 2.2, and may be modified as described in Section 2.11.
5. “Committee Note” is a Non-Standards Track Work Product that has been approved by a Technical Committee as specified in Section 3.3.
6. “Committee Note Draft” is a Non-Standards Track Work Product approved by a Technical Committee as specified in Section 3.1.
7. “Committee Note Public Review Draft” is a Committee Note Draft that has been approved by the TC to go to public review as specified in Section 3.2 of this Process.
8. “Committee Specification” is a Standards Track Work Product that has been approved by a Technical Committee as specified in Section 3.3.
9. “Committee Specification Draft” is a Standards Track Work Product approved by a Technical Committee as specified in Section 3.1.
10. “Committee Specification Public Review Draft” is a Committee Specification Draft that has been approved by the TC to go to public review as specified in Section 3.2 of this Process.
11. “Convener” is an Eligible Person who serves in the role of organizing the first meeting of the TC, as defined in Section 2.3.
12. “Eligible Person” means one of a class of individuals that includes (a) OASIS Individual Members, (b) employees or designees of OASIS Organizational Members, and (c) such other persons as may be designated by the OASIS Board of Directors.
13. “Errata” means a set of changes or proposed changes to an OASIS Standard that are not Substantive Changes.
14. “Full Majority Vote” is a TC vote in which more than 50% (more than half) of the Voting Members vote “yes”, regardless of the number of Voting Members present in the meeting. Abstentions are not counted. For example, in a TC in which there are 20 Voting Members, at least 11 Voting Members must vote “yes” for a motion to pass.
15. “IPR” means intellectual property rights.
16. “Leave of Absence” shall have the meaning defined in Section 2.6.
17. “Meeting” is a meeting of the TC that is properly called and scheduled in advance as described in Section 2.10.
18. “Member“, with respect to a TC, means an Eligible Person who is allowed to subscribe to the TC email list, participate in list discussions, attend and participate in TC meetings, and make Contributions to the TC. The process for becoming a Member of a TC is defined in Section 2.4.
19. “Minimum Membership” means five Voting Members of a TC (or, in the case of a TC about to be formed, five Eligible Persons), at least two of which represent OASIS Organizational Members.
20. “Non-Material Change” is any change to the content of a Work Product that does not add or remove any feature of the Work Product and that: (a) constitutes only error corrections, editorial changes, or formatting changes; or (b) is a pro forma change to content required by TC Administration.
21. “Non-Standards Track Work Product” is a Work Product produced and approved by a TC in accordance with the TC Process which may be progressed to Committee Note as described in Section 3. Non-Standards Track Work Products are intended to be informative and explanatory in nature. They are not subject to the patent licensing and non-assertion obligations requirements of the OASIS IPR Policy.
22. “Normative Portion” shall have the meaning defined for such term by the OASIS IPR Policy.
23. “Normative Reference” means a reference in a Standards Track Work Product to an external document or resource with which the implementer must comply, in order to comply with a Normative Portion of the Work Product.
24. “OASIS Deliverable” means any of the following: Committee Specification Drafts, Committee Specification Public Review Drafts, Committee Specifications, Candidate OASIS Standards, OASIS Standards, Approved Errata, Committee Note Drafts, Committee Note Public Review Drafts, and Committee Notes.
25. “OASIS Individual Member” means an OASIS Member who is classified as such in their executed Membership Agreement.
26. “OASIS Member” means a person, organization or entity who is a voting or non-voting member of the corporation, as defined by the OASIS Bylaws.
27. “OASIS Non-Standards Draft Deliverable” means any of the following: Committee Note Drafts and Committee Note Public Review Drafts.
28. “OASIS Non-Standards Final Deliverable” means any of the following: Committee Notes.
29. “OASIS Organizational Member” means an OASIS Member who is classified as such in their executed Membership Agreement.
30. “OASIS Standards Draft Deliverable” means any of the following: Committee Specification Drafts and Committee Specification Public Review Drafts.
31. “OASIS Standards Final Deliverable” means any of the following: Committee Specifications, Candidate OASIS Standards, OASIS Standards and Approved Errata.
32. “OASIS Standard” is a Candidate OASIS Standard that has been approved by the OASIS Membership as specified in Section 3.4.
33. “OASIS TC Administrator” means the person or persons representing OASIS in administrative matters relating to TCs. All official communications must be sent to tc-admin@oasis-open.org.
34. “Observer” is an Eligible Person who is subscribed to the TC email list, and may attend TC meetings, but is not allowed to participate in TC email list discussions, participate or speak in TC meetings, or make Contributions to the TC. The process for becoming an Observer is defined in Section 2.4.
35. “Persistent Non-Voting Member” is a TC Member who has declared their non-voting status in that TC. The process for becoming a Persistent Non-Voting Member of a TC is defined in Section 2.4.
36. “Primary Representative“, for any OASIS Organizational Member, means the person or persons designated by that Member to serve as the consortium’s principal contact for administrative issues.
37. “Public” and “publicly” mean all persons, organizations and entities, whether or not OASIS Members.
38. “Quorum” is the number of Voting Members of a TC that must be present in a meeting so that Resolutions and decisions may be made. The Quorum for OASIS TC meetings is a simple majority (more than half) of Voting Members.
39. “Quorate Meeting” is a TC meeting at which a Quorum is present.
40. “Resolution” means a decision reached by a TC by vote. Resolutions require a Simple Majority Vote to pass, unless a Full Majority Vote or Special Majority Vote is required under this Process.
41. “Simple Majority Vote” is a vote in which the number of “yes” votes cast is greater than the number of “no” votes cast. Abstentions are not counted. For example, in a Quorate Meeting in which 20 Voting Members are present, if 7 vote “yes” and 4 vote “no”, the motion passes.
42. “Special Majority Vote” is a TC vote in which at least 2/3 (two thirds) of the Voting Members vote “yes” and no more than 1/4 (one fourth) of the Voting Members vote “no”. These numbers are based on the total number of Voting Members, regardless of the number of Voting Members present in the meeting. Abstentions are not counted. For example, in a TC in which there are 30 Voting Members, at least 20 Voting Members must vote “yes” for a motion to pass; but if 8 or more vote “no” then the motion fails. All Special Majority Votes must be conducted via electronic ballot by the OASIS TC Administrator.
43. “Standards Track Work Product” is a Work Product produced and approved by a TC in accordance with the TC Process which may be promoted to Committee Specification or OASIS Standard as described in Section 3.
44. “Statement of Use“, with respect to a Committee Specification, is a written statement that a party has successfully used or implemented that specification in accordance with all or some of its conformance clauses specified in Section 2.18, identifying those clauses that apply, and stating whether its use included the interoperation of multiple independent implementations. The Statement of Use must be made to a specific version of the Committee Specification and must include the Specification’s approval date. The party may be an OASIS Member or a non-member. In case of a non-member, the Statement of Use must be submitted on the TC comment-list. A TC may require a Statement of Use to include hyperlinks to documents, files or demonstration transcripts that enable TC members to evaluate the implementation or usage. A Statement of Use submitted to the TC must be approved by TC resolution as an acceptable Statement of Use with respect to the Committee Specification. A party can only issue one Statement of Use for a given specification. When issued by an OASIS Organizational Member, a Statement of Use must be endorsed by the Organizational Member’s Primary Representative.
45. “Subcommittee” (or “SC”) is a group of Members of a TC producing recommendations for consideration by the parent TC.
46. “Substantive Change” is a change to an OASIS Standard that would require a compliant application or implementation to be modified or rewritten in order to remain compliant.
47. “Technical Committee” (or “TC”) means a group comprised of at least the Minimum Membership formed and conducted according to the provisions of this OASIS TC Process.
48. “Voting Member” is a Member of a TC who has voting rights in the TC. The process for gaining voting rights is defined in Section 2.4.
49. “Work Product” is a document which is either a Standards Track Work Product or a Non-Standards Track Work Product.
50. “Work Product Approval Motion” is any motion to initiate a Work Product Ballot.
51. “Work Product Ballot” is any TC ballot for the:
    • approval of a Committee Specification Draft or Committee Note Draft,
    • start of a Public Review,
    • approval of a Committee Specification, or a Committee Note,
    • submission of a Committee Specification as a Candidate OASIS Standard.
52. “Working Draft” is a preliminary version of a Work Product produced by one or more TC Members that has not yet been voted on by the TC and approved as a Committee Specification Draft or a Committee Note Draft. Some examples are initial contributions and revisions made by editors or other TC Members.

The use of the term “day” or “days” in this TC Process refers to calendar days.

Section 2. Technical Committees

2.1 TC Discussion Lists

Any group of at least three Eligible Persons may begin a publicly subscribable discussion list for the purpose of forming a TC by submitting to the OASIS TC Administrator the following items:

(1) The name of the discussion list, which shall not be the same as the name of the list in which the TC itself shall operate if formed.

(2) A preliminary statement of scope for the TC whose formation the list is intended to discuss.

(3) The names, electronic mail addresses, and OASIS Organizational or Individual Membership affiliations of the three or more Eligible Persons proposing to create the discussion list.

(4) The name of the discussion list leader.

No later than 15 days following the submission, the OASIS TC Administrator shall provide these materials to the OASIS Membership with a Call For Participation in a discussion list whose purpose is to propose the TC described in the application.

Discussion on the list is restricted to evaluating the interest in proposing a new OASIS TC, and defining the proposal for one or more new OASIS TCs. The list of subscribers to the discussion list shall be available to all subscribers. The discussion list shall automatically close 90 days after the Call For Participation is issued.

2.2 TC Formation

Any group of at least Minimum Membership shall be authorized to begin a TC by submitting to the OASIS TC Administrator, with a copy to those listed in 2(d) and 2(e) below, the following items, written in English and provided in electronic form as plain text. No information other than these items may be included in the proposal. All items must be provided in any subsequent revision of the proposal, and must be submitted in the same manner as the original submission. Any documents referenced in the proposal shall be publicly available.

(1) The Charter of the TC, which includes only the following items:

(1)(a) The name of the TC, such name not to have been previously used for an OASIS TC and not to include any trademarks or service marks not owned by OASIS. The proposed TC name is subject to TC Administrator approval and may not include any misleading or inappropriate names. The proposed name must specify any acronyms or abbreviations of the name that shall be used to refer to the TC.

(1)(b) A statement of purpose, including a definition of the problem to be solved.

(1)(c) The scope of the work of the TC, which must be germane to the mission of OASIS, and which includes a definition of what is and what is not the work of the TC, and how it can be determined when the work of the TC has been completed. The scope may reference a specific contribution of existing work as a starting point, but other contributions may be made by TC Members on or after the first meeting of the TC. Such other contributions shall be considered by the TC Members on an equal basis to improve the original starting point contribution.

(1)(d) A list of deliverables, with projected completion dates.

(1)(e) Specification of the IPR Mode under which the TC will operate.

(1)(f) The anticipated audience or users of the work.

(1)(g) The language in which the TC shall conduct business.

(2) Non-normative information regarding the startup of the TC, which includes:

(2)(a) Identification of similar or applicable work that is being done in other OASIS TCs or by other organizations, why there is a need for another effort in this area and how this proposed TC will be different, and what level of liaison will be pursued with these other organizations.

(2)(b) The date, time, and location of the first meeting, whether it will be held in person or by telephone, and who will sponsor this first meeting. The first meeting of a TC shall occur no less than 30 days after the announcement of its formation in the case of a meeting held exclusively by telephone or other electronic means, and no less than 45 days after the announcement of its formation in the case of a meeting held face-to-face (whether or not a telephone bridge is also available).

(2)(c) The projected on-going meeting schedule for the year following the formation of the TC, or until the projected date of the final deliverable, whichever comes first, and who will be expected to sponsor these meetings.

(2)(d) The names, electronic mail addresses, and membership affiliations of at least Minimum Membership who support this proposal and are committed to the Charter and projected meeting schedule.

(2)(e) For each OASIS Organizational Member listed in (2)(d), the name, electronic mail address, membership affiliation, and statement of support for the proposed Charter from the Primary Representative.

(2)(f) The name of the Convener who must be an Eligible Person.

(2)(g) The name of the Member Section with which the TC intends to affiliate, if any.

(2)(h) Optionally, a list of contributions of existing technical work that the proposers anticipate will be made to this TC.

(2)(i) Optionally, a draft Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) document regarding the planned scope of the TC, for posting on the TC’s website.

(2)(j) Optionally, a proposed working title and acronym for the Work Products to be developed by the TC.

No later than 5 days following the submission, the OASIS TC Administrator shall either return the submission to its originators, with an explanation indicating its failure to meet the requirements set forth in this section, or shall post notice of the submission to an announced mailing list (or equivalent method) visible to the submission proposers and the OASIS Membership, for comment.

The notice will announce that comments will be received until the 14th day after the notice, and will announce a date within 4 days of that 14th day for a conference call, among the Convener, the OASIS TC Administrator, and those proposers who wish to attend. Other OASIS Members who wish to attend may observe.

The proposer group may amend their submission at any time until the 28th day after the submission (except that changes to the roster of proposers may occur at any time until the final posting). By the 28th day the proposer group must post a pointer to an account of each of the comments / issues raised during that review, along with its resolution.

No later than the 30th day after the submission, if those pointers have been posted, and the last version of the submission from the proposer group meets the requirements of these rules, the OASIS TC Administrator must post them to the OASIS Membership with a Call For Participation and an announcement of a first meeting. Otherwise, the Convener may obtain a single 10-day extension for posting a compliant proposal with the OASIS TC Administrator.

2.3 First Meeting of a TC

Eligible Persons intending to participate in the first meeting must use the OASIS collaborative tools to register as a TC Member, and to specify whether they intend to gain voting rights, no later than 7 days prior to a meeting. No later than 7 days prior to the meeting, the OASIS TC Administrator will post a notice to the prospective Members on the TC’s general email list inviting indications of candidacy for TC Chair to be posted to that list.

If the first meeting of a TC is to be conducted as a face-to-face meeting, the Convener must arrange for teleconference facilities to be provided for those unable to attend in person.

If the Eligible Person is an employee or designee of an OASIS Organizational Member, the Primary Representative of that organization must confirm to the Convener and to the TC Administrator that the person may become a Member of the TC.

Every Eligible Person who has so registered and been confirmed shall be a Member of the TC beginning with the first meeting. Every Eligible Person who has so registered, requested voting rights, been confirmed, and is present at the first meeting of a TC shall be a Voting Member of the TC beginning with the first meeting.

The first meeting of a TC must occur at the place and time and in the manner described in the announcement. Any initial meeting whose time or location is changed and any initial telephone or other electronic meeting that fails to grant access to every Eligible Person previously registering to attend shall be subject to appeal as provided in Section 4.2.

At least Minimum Membership must become Voting Members at the first TC meeting or the TC shall be considered not to have been successfully started and shall be closed.

At the first meeting the TC must elect a Chair as the first order of business, from among nominations made by Voting Members at that meeting. Once the Chair is elected the role of Convener ends.

2.4 TC Membership and Participation

TC membership is per person, not per organization, and is not transferable from person to person.

2.4.1 Observer: An Eligible Person may become an Observer of a TC by registering as an Observer using the electronic collaboration tools provided by OASIS. If the Eligible Person is an employee or designee of an OASIS Organizational Member, the Primary Representative of that organization must be notified that the person has requested to become an Observer. The Observer is not a TC Member so has no attendance or participation requirements to maintain this status, other than to remain an Eligible Person.

2.4.2 Member: Any time after the first meeting, an Eligible Person shall become a Member of an existing TC by registering as a Member using the electronic collaboration tools provided by OASIS. If the Eligible Person is an employee or designee of an OASIS Organizational Member, the Primary Representative of that organization must confirm to the Chair and to the TC Administrator that the person may become a Member of the TC. Upon receipt by the Chair of confirmation by the Primary Representative the Member may begin participating, but shall not have voting rights. A Member shall become eligible to vote in the TC when the requirements below are met.

2.4.3 Persistent Non-Voting Member: A Member or Voting Member may, at any time after joining a Technical Committee, send e-mail to both the Chair and the TC mailing list informing them of their change in membership status, effective as of the date of notice, or other specified future date. A Persistent Non-Voting Member retains participation rights but is not eligible to vote and does not count towards Quorum. A Persistent Non-Voting Member who wishes to gain voting rights must send e-mail to both the Chair and the TC mailing list informing them of their intent to become a Voting Member and must follow the rules in section 2.4.4(c) as if they had lost their voting rights due to non-attendance.

2.4.4 Voting Member:

(a) After the first Meeting of a TC, a Member shall gain voting rights at the close of the second consecutive Meeting attended by the Member or, if less than two Meetings are called within 60 days after the person becomes a Member, at the close of that 60th day. OASIS Individual Members and the representatives of OASIS Organizational Members are equally eligible to serve as Voting Members of a TC.

(b) A Voting Member must be active in a TC to maintain voting rights. In TCs that hold Meetings, a Voting Member who is absent from two consecutive Meetings (as recorded in the minutes) loses his or her voting rights at the end of the second Meeting missed. If a TC has adopted a standing rule to conduct business only by electronic ballot, without Meetings, then a Voting Member who fails to cast a ballot in two consecutive Work Product Ballots loses his or her voting rights at the close of the second ballot missed.

(c) A TC Member who has lost his or her voting rights shall regain them for a TC that holds Meetings by attending two consecutive Meetings (as recorded in the minutes), thus regaining voting rights after the end of the second Meeting attended or, if less than two Meetings are called within 60 days after the loss of such rights, at the close of that 60th day. A Member of a TC that does not hold Meetings may regain voting rights by making a request to the chair(s) to regain them, effective at the close of the 60th day after the request.

(d) Voting Members who lose their voting rights remain Members of the TC. A warning may be sent to the Member by the Chair, but the loss of voting rights is not dependent on the warning.

2.5 Termination of TC Membership

Except as provided in Section 2.6, membership in an OASIS TC shall be terminated under the following conditions:

(1) A Member shall be considered to have resigned from a TC upon his sending notification of resignation to the TC general email list.

(2) Persons who lose Eligible Person status for reasons including, but not limited to, change of employment shall have up to 15 days of TC membership as an OASIS Individual Member in which to request a Leave of Absence or re-establish eligibility. A Member shall lose TC membership on the 16th day after losing Eligible Person status or at the end of a Leave of Absence requested as specified in Section 2.6 if Eligible Person status has not been re-established.

Termination of membership in an OASIS TC shall automatically end voting rights in the TC as well as membership in any Subcommittee of that TC.

2.6 Leaves of Absence

Every Voting Member of an OASIS TC shall be entitled to at least one Leave of Absence during any one twelve month period. During a Leave of Absence, a Voting Member shall be exempt from the participation criteria specified in Section 2.4. A first Leave of Absence during any one twelve month period shall be obtained automatically by sending an email to both the Chair and the TC mailing list. The Chair must notify the TC of all Leaves of Absence by reporting them in the minutes of the TC’s next meeting.

A Voting Member who has already been granted a Leave of Absence during any twelve month period may apply for a maximum of one additional Leave of Absence during the same twelve month period, but a second Leave of Absence during any twelve month period shall be granted only upon formal Resolution of the TC.

A Voting Member of a TC who has been granted a Leave of Absence shall not have voting rights in the TC and all of its Subcommittees for the duration of the Leave; voting rights shall resume immediately upon the person returning from Leave.

The length of a Leave of Absence shall be specified in advance by the Voting Member requesting it and shall not exceed 45 days. A Leave of Absence shall begin no earlier than seven days after the date upon which the request was delivered to the Chair of the TC and shall end on the date specified, or at the beginning of the first TC meeting or Subcommittee meeting attended after the Leave begins, or upon transmittal of the first mail ballot returned after the Leave begins, whichever comes first. Time allocated for a Leave of Absence but not used due to early resumption of participation cannot be carried over into another Leave.

2.7 TC Chairs

Each TC must have a Chair. Only Members and Voting Members of the TC are eligible to be Chair or co-Chair. The TC Chair is initially elected at the first meeting. The Chair is elected by Full Majority Vote of the TC. If the TC does not have a Chair then all TC activities, with the exception of the selection of a new Chair, are suspended; if the TC does not have a Chair for 120 days, the TC Administrator must close the TC.

The responsibilities of Chair of a TC may be discharged by no more than two co-Chairs. In the event that the Chair position is so shared each co-Chair is equally responsible for the Chair duties and responsibilities. Throughout this TC Process, whenever a notification to the TC Chair is required this must be made to both co-Chairs.

A TC Chair may be removed by action of the Board of Directors or by a Special Majority Vote of the TC. In the event that a TC has co-Chairs each may be removed individually or both may be removed by a single action.

A vacancy in chairing a TC shall be deemed to exist when (i) the Chair or one or both co-Chairs has been removed, (ii) the Chair or one or both co-Chairs has resigned the position, or (iii) the Chair or one or both co-Chairs ceases to be a Member of the TC. Vacancies in chairing a TC shall be filled by election from the TC Members; the TC may elect at any time by vote to elect a co-Chair, if only one Chair is seated, or to leave a second seat vacant. Any TC chair or co-chair election shall be by Full Majority Vote of the TC, with each winning candidate having received a full majority vote regardless of the number of candidates.

The same provisions regarding Leaves of Absence shall apply to the Chair or co-Chair of a TC as to the other TC Members, and additionally the Chair must notify both the OASIS TC Administrator and the TC at least 30 days prior to any non-emergency Leave of Absence.

2.8 TC Visibility

The official copies of all resources of the TC and its associated Subcommittees, including web pages, documents, email lists and any other records of discussions, must be located only on facilities designated by OASIS. TCs and SCs may not conduct official business or technical discussions, store documents, or host web pages on servers or systems not designated by OASIS. All web pages, documents, ballot results and email archives of all TCs and SCs shall be publicly visible.

Mail Lists: Each TC shall be provided upon formation with a general discussion email list and a means to collect public comments. Subscription to the general email list shall be required for Members, Voting Members, and Observers of the TC.

The minutes of each TC meeting and a record of all decisions shall be posted to that TC’s general email list. All official communications and discussions of the TC must take place on the email list. All TC email lists shall be archived for the duration of the corporation, and all TC email archives shall be publicly visible.

The purpose of the TC’s public comment facility is to receive comments from the public and is not for public discussion. Comments shall be publicly archived, and shall be forwarded to one or more Members of the TC including the TC Chair. TCs shall not be required to respond to comments. Comments to the TC made by Members of the TC must be made via the TC general email list, and comments made by non-TC members, including from the public, must be made via the TC’s comment facility. Comments shall not be accepted via any other means.

Web Pages: The OASIS TC Administrator shall provide the TC with a publicly accessible web page. The TC must keep the following information current on the TC web page: the TC name and Charter; standing rules and other adopted procedures; meeting schedule; anticipated deliverables and delivery dates; list of TC Members; the name and email address of the TC Chair or co-Chairs as well as other positions such as secretary, editor, etc. that may exist; list of Subcommittees, their deliverables, and members; links to a repository of the draft and completed TC documents with identification of the latest versions of the TC’s Work Products; and a link to the IPR declarations for that TC.

Announcements: The OASIS TC Administrator shall create a publicly archived list for announcements from the OASIS TC Administrator regarding TCs. Any Eligible Person shall be able to subscribe to this list. Every important change in TC status shall be posted to the announcement list; such changes shall include but not be limited to the following: TC formation; TC Charter revision; start of Public Review; approval of Committee Specifications and Committee Notes; submission of a Committee Specification as a Candidate OASIS Standard; approval or rejection of a proposed OASIS Standard; and closure of a TC.

2.9 TC Procedure

The operation of TCs shall be governed by Robert’s Rules of Order Newly Revised, insofar as such rules are not inconsistent with or in conflict with this TC Process, the OASIS IPR Policy, the OASIS Bylaws, other Board-approved policies, or with provisions of law. The duration of a TC shall be considered a single session. Formal actions of TCs shall be governed by the same rules regardless of the language in which the work is taking place.

Standing rules may be adopted, amended, or rescinded by Full Majority Vote of the TC. The TC may not adopt standing rules or other Resolutions related to IPR, quorum requirements, membership, voting, participation, or that otherwise conflict with or supersede any OASIS Board-approved policy. Standing rules, and any amendments to them, must be communicated to the TC Administrator, who may rescind them if they are in conflict with OASIS policy, and, in order to be enforceable, must be posted on the TC’s web page.

2.10 TC Meetings

TC meetings must be properly called and scheduled in advance using the OASIS collaborative tools. Meetings scheduled or conducted in such a manner as to exclude the participation of any Member is subject to appeal. Meetings may be conducted face-to-face or via telephone conference or other electronic media that allow participation of all Members of the TC. In order to enable the openness of TC proceedings, meetings should be scheduled and conducted so as to permit the presence of as many TC Observers as is logistically feasible. Meeting minutes must be recorded and posted to the TC’s general email list and referenced on the TC web page.

Without a Quorum present discussions may take place but no business may be conducted; those present may act as a “Committee of the Whole” as defined in Robert’s Rules of Order Newly Revised, and make a report to the entire TC. Attendance must be recorded in the meeting minutes. Meetings without Quorum shall still count towards attendance for purposes of Members gaining, maintaining, or losing voting rights.

2.11 TC Charter Clarification

A TC may clarify its Charter only for the purpose of removing ambiguity or for narrowing the scope of the topic defined by the Charter. The TC may not broaden or otherwise change its scope of the topic of work. The list of deliverables may be expanded only if the new deliverables are within the scope of the topic.

Approval for clarification shall require a Special Majority Vote of the TC. The clarification of the Charter may occur no earlier than the first meeting of the TC. The TC Chair shall notify the TC Administrator that a motion has been made to clarify the Charter, and the TC Administrator shall set up and conduct the ballot.

The TC Administrator may prevent the proposed clarification from coming to vote if it is not in conformance with OASIS policies. The TC Administrator must within 15 days either open the ballot or reply to the TC with the reason why the change cannot be voted upon. The clarified Charter shall not take effect until approved and announced by the TC Administrator. The TC Administrator shall publicize approved changes as specified in Section 2.8 and any revisable publicly visible description (e.g., web page) promulgated by the TC shall be updated to reflect such changes.

2.12 TC Rechartering

In order to expand the scope of a TC, it must be re-chartered. The TC shall retain the same name, all email lists and archives, web pages, etc. Contributions made to the TC under the prior charter must be recontributed to be used under the revised charter.

Rechartering shall not change the TC name nor the IPR Mode of the TC. If a different name or IPR Mode is desired then a new TC (with a unique name) must be formed and the normal rules for creating a new TC apply (see section 2.2).

A proposal to recharter the TC must be made by Resolution and submitted to the TC Administrator. The proposal shall follow the rules for a proposal to form a new TC as specified in section 2.2 excluding items 2(d) and 2(e).

The TC Administrator shall reply to the proposers within 15 days, and if the proposal is complete shall schedule a ballot. Approval for rechartering shall require a Special Majority Vote of the TC being rechartered.

Once the ballot has been approved, the following steps shall be taken:

1. Within five days of approval, the TC Administrator shall announce the rechartering to the OASIS Membership with a Call for Participation (including instructions for how and when to join the the newly rechartered TC) and an announcement of the first meeting in the same manner as for a new TC.
2. The TC may continue work until seven days before the first meeting under the new charter. Seven days before the first meeting, all work of the TC shall stop and the TC Administrator shall send an email to the TC mailing list describing the procedure for re-joining the TC and remove all Members and TC officers from the TC roster.
3. OASIS members wishing to (re)join the TC shall follow the normal procedures for joining a new TC. In the event that a member is not able to join in the seven day period before the first meeting, because of lack of online access, the member’s primary representative may ask the TC Administrator to add the member to the TC.

The same rules and procedures regarding the First Meeting of a TC specified under section 2.3 also apply for the first meeting of the rechartered TC, except as superseded in this section.

The time period for determining Members’ Participation Obligation shall restart at the first meeting of the TC under the revised charter.

2.13 TC Voting

TC votes require a Simple Majority Vote to pass, except as noted elsewhere in this Process. All TC ballots requiring a Special Majority Vote for approval must be conducted by the TC Administrator; the TC Chair shall notify the TC Administrator that a motion has been made which requires a Special Majority Vote, and the TC Administrator shall set up and conduct the ballot.

Eligibility: A Member of a TC must have voting rights to make or second a motion, and must have voting rights at the time a ballot is opened in order to vote on that ballot. Every Voting Member of a TC has a single vote. Organizations do not vote in TCs. Proxies shall not be allowed in TC voting.

Electronic Voting: TCs may conduct electronic ballots, either by using the TC’s general mail list or the publicly archived electronic voting functionality provided by OASIS. The minimum period allowed for electronic voting shall be seven days; the TC may specify a longer voting period for a particular electronic ballot. Any Work Product Ballot conducted as an electronic ballot must permit each voter to choose “yes”, “no” or “abstain.” Eligible voters may change their vote up until the end of the voting period.

A motion opening an electronic ballot must be made in a TC meeting or on the TC’s general email list. Motions made on the TC’s email list must also be seconded and discussed on that list.

2.14 TC Subcommittees

The TC may by Resolution create a Subcommittee (SC). The Resolution must be minuted, and must include the name, statement of purpose, list of deliverables, and name of the Chair of the SC. All of these items must fall within the Charter of the TC and conform to OASIS policy.

The deliverables of the SC are made only to the TC. Members of the SC must first be Members of the TC. Observers of a TC may be Observers of a SC, but may not become SC members without first becoming a Member of the TC. An SC member may resign from the SC and remain a Member of the TC.

The TC may close a Subcommittee (SC) by Resolution. The Resolution must be minuted, and must include the name of the Subcommittee.

2.15 Closing a TC

A TC may be closed by Full Majority Vote of the TC, by Resolution of the OASIS Board of Directors, or by the OASIS TC Administrator.

The TC Administrator must close a TC that has completed the deliverables listed in its Charter if the TC does not add new deliverables or that fails to elect a Chair for the period provided in Section 2.7.

The TC Administrator may close a TC that fails to conduct at least one Quorate Meeting or conduct any Work Product Ballots during any six month period; whose membership falls below the Minimum Membership; which has not completed its deliverables within the schedule listed in its Charter; or which has failed to show progress towards achieving its purpose as defined by its Charter.

2.16 Maintenance Activity of OASIS Standards Final Deliverables

(1) Only one TC at a time may perform a Maintenance Activity on an OASIS Standards Final Deliverable.

(2) Maintenance Activity on an OASIS Standards Final Deliverable is always within the scope of the TC that created the deliverable, whether or not the TC’s Charter explicitly references it.

(3) Maintenance Activity on an OASIS Standards Final Deliverable may be done by a TC other than the TC that originated the deliverable, if: (a) the name of the OASIS Standards Final Deliverable to be maintained is listed as a deliverable in its Charter, and (b) if the originating TC is not closed, it has consented to the Maintenance Activity by a Special Majority Vote.

2.17 Intellectual Property Rights Procedures

The TC shall operate in accordance with the OASIS Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Policy.

Notices of Disclosed Claims, as defined in and required by the OASIS IPR Policy, shall be made by sending an email message to the TC Administrator, who shall post the disclosure on the TC’s web page and notify the TC via the TC general email list. The TC shall make no formal decision with regard to the applicability or validity of an IPR disclosure.

Contributions, as defined in the OASIS IPR Policy, shall be made by sending to the TC’s general email list either the contribution, or a notice that the contribution has been delivered to the TC’s document repository; a URL or other reference to the document is not sufficient. Written contributions must be converted to electronic format and delivered to the TC’s general email list or document repository. The TC is not required to acknowledge or use any Contribution.

2.18 Work Product Quality

(1) General. All documents and other files produced by the TC, including Work Products at any level of approval, must use the OASIS file naming scheme, and must include the OASIS copyright notice. All document files must be written using the OASIS document authoring templates, which shall be maintained and made available by the TC Administrator. The name of any Work Product may not include any trademarks or service marks not owned by OASIS.

(2) Acknowledgements. Any Work Product that is approved by the TC at any level must include a list of people who participated in the development of the Work Product. This list shall be initially compiled by the Chair, and any Member of the TC may add or remove their names from the list by request.

(3) References. A Work Product that is approved by the TC at any level must clearly indicate whether each reference in the Work Product to a document or artifact is a Normative Reference.

(4) File Formats. Editable formats of all versions of TC documents must be delivered to the TC’s document repository. Working Drafts may be in any format (i.e. produced by any application). All approved versions of OASIS Deliverables must be delivered to the TC’s document repository in the (1) editable source, (2) HTML or XHTML, and (3) PDF formats; and the TC must explicitly designate one of those delivered formats as the authoritative document. Any links referenced by the TC shall be to the HTML, XHTML and/or PDF formats stored using repositories and domain names owned by OASIS and as approved by the TC Administrator.

(5) Multi-Part Work Products. A Work Product may be composed of any number of files of different types, though any such multi-part Work Product must have a single Work Product name and version number. Irrespective of the number and status of the constituent parts, the Work Product as a whole must be approved by a single Work Product Ballot.

(6) Allowed changes. Any change made to a Work Product requires a new version or revision number, except for changes made to (a) the approval status, (b) the date, (c) the URIs of the Work Product as appropriate, (d) the running header/footer, (e) updates to the file names of all Work Product files and any references between them, (f) any approved Designated Cross-Reference Changes, or (g) when a Committee Note Public Review Draft is approved as a Committee Note or a Committee Specification is approved as an OASIS Standard, and prior to its publication, any references to a Committee Specification may be updated if the referenced Committee Specification has subsequently been approved and published as an OASIS Standard. All of 6(a-g) must be made after the approval of the Work Product as a Committee Specification Draft, Committee Note Draft, Committee Note, Committee Specification, Candidate OASIS Standard, or OASIS Standard and before its official publication by TC Administration.

(7) Computer Language Definitions. All normative computer language definitions that are part of the Work Product, such as XML instances, schemas and Java(TM) code, including fragments of such, must be well formed and valid.

(7a) For Standards Track Work Products:

• All normative computer language definitions must be provided in separate plain text files;
• Each text file must be referenced from the Work Product; and
• Where any definition in these separate files disagrees with the definition found in the specification, the definition in the separate file prevails.

(7b) For Non-Standards Track Work Products:

• All computer language definitions should be provided in separate plain text files; and
• Each text file should be referenced from the Work Product.

(8) Conformance Clauses.

(8a) For Standards Track Work Products:

A specification that is approved by the TC at the Committee Specification Public Review Draft, Committee Specification or OASIS Standard level must include a separate section, listing a set of numbered conformance clauses, to which any implementation of the specification must adhere in order to claim conformance to the specification (or any optional portion thereof).

(8b) For Non-Standards Track Work Products:

None required.

(9) Restrictions and Disclaimers.

Every Work Product must clearly indicate on the cover page whether it is a Standards Track Work Product or Non-Standards Track Work Product. The cover page of a Non-Standards Track Work Product must clearly and conspicuously state that the patent provisions of the IPR Policy do not apply to that Non-Standards Track Work Product.

Standards Track Work Products and Non-Standards Track Work Products must have clearly distinguishable templates and styling.

Documents which use formats that support headers and footers should indicate on every page whether the document is a Standards Track Work Product or Non-Standards Track Work Product. In these cases, every Non-Standards Track Work Product must also have a brief statement on every page that the patent provisions of the IPR Policy do not apply.

Non-Standards Track Work Products must not contain language that would otherwise fall within the definition of Normative Portion (were they subject to its provisions).

2.19 Designated Cross-Reference Changes

A TC wishing to update the Normative References or non-Normative References in the Normative References or Non-Normative References section in one of its OASIS Work Products to reflect the outcome of a pending status change in another OASIS Work Product may do so, by adopting a “Designated Cross-Reference Change” as part of its Work Product Approval Motion, which must include: (a) a list designating each of the other OASIS Work Products (including version number) that are referenced by that Work Product and whose cross-references should conditionally be updated; (b) a reference to this Section 2.19; and (c) an acknowledgement that approval and publication of the Work Product may be delayed by the Designated Cross-Reference Changes.

Designated Cross Reference Changes may only be made on Work Product Approval Motions for Committee Specification Drafts, Committee Note Drafts, Public Review Drafts, Committee Notes, Committee Specifications, and Candidate OASIS Standards. Designated Cross Reference Changes may only be made for Work Products with the following pending status changes:

• Working Drafts to be approved as Committee Specification Note Drafts and/or
• Committee Specification or Note Drafts to be approved as Public Review Drafts and/or
• Committee Specification or Note Drafts or Public Review Drafts being approved as Committee Specifications or Notes and/or
• Committee Specifications being approved as Candidate OASIS Standards and/or
• Candidate OASIS Standards being approved as OASIS Standards.

Designated Cross Reference Changes may not be made to any OASIS Work Product changing its version or revision number nor to any non-OASIS standard or publication.

The text of a proposed Designated Cross-Reference Change to a Work Product shall only include for each cross-referenced Work Product:

• the current name, version and revision number;
• the current URI;
• the expected approval status; and
• the expected approval date of the cross-referenced Work Product.

The effectiveness of a proposed Designated Cross-Reference Change in a Work Product is conditioned on the resolution of the expected approval action for each cross-referenced Work Product. Therefore, if a Work Product Approval Motion includes proposed Designated Cross-Reference Changes, the effectiveness of the subject Work Product’s approval will be delayed until the resolution of all other cross-referenced Work Product approval actions. The TC Administrator will withhold announcement and certification of the Work Product itself until all such cross-referenced resolutions are complete.

If the Work Product Approval Motion (which includes Designated Cross-Reference Changes) passes, then, when the last cross-referenced approval is resolved, the final approved version will be published with all of its conditional descriptions of the cross-referenced Work Products updated to reflect their correct status at that time.

Section 3. Approval Process

3.0 Introduction

Aside from approving Administrative Documents, the only document approvals a TC may validly perform are described in this Section.

Standards Track Work Products progress as follows:

1. Committee Specification Draft,
2. Committee Specification Public Review Draft,
3. Committee Specification,
4. Candidate OASIS Standard,
5. OASIS Standard,
6. Approved Errata.

Non-Standards Track Work Products progress as follows:

1. Committee Note Draft,
2. Committee Note Public Review Draft,
3. Committee Note.

Each of the progressions above must begin with step 1, and no step may be skipped. However a TC is not required to progress a Work Product from one step to the next.

3.1 Approval of a Committee Draft

The TC may at any stage during development of a Work Product approve a Working Draft as a Committee Specification Draft or Committee Note Draft, as appropriate. Approval of these drafts shall require a Full Majority Vote of the TC. The TC may approve a Working Draft, revise it, and re-approve it any number of times as a Committee Specification Draft or Committee Note Draft.

3.2 Public Review of a Committee Draft

Before the TC can approve a Committee Specification Draft as a Committee Specification, or a Committee Note Draft as a Committee Note, the TC must conduct a public review of the work. The decision by the TC to submit the draft for public review requires a Full Majority Vote, and must be accompanied by a recommendation from the TC of external stakeholders who should be notified of the review. The draft approved to go to review shall be called a Committee Specification Public Review Draft or Committee Note Public Review Draft, as appropriate. The public review must be announced by the TC Administrator to the OASIS Membership list and optionally on other public mail lists; the TC Administrator shall at the same time issue a call for IPR disclosure for Committee Specification Public Review Drafts.

Comments from non-TC Members must be collected via the TC’s archived public comment facility; comments made through any other means (unless made by a TC Member via the TC email list) shall not be accepted. The TC must acknowledge the receipt of each comment, track the comments received, and post to its primary e-mail list its disposition of each comment at the end of the review period.

No changes may be made to the public review draft during a review. If the TC decides by Full Majority Vote that changes are required, the draft shall be withdrawn from review after the Chair informs the TC Administrator, and then subsequently resubmitted by the TC for a new Public Review cycle of the same type, either initial or subsequent.

The TC may conduct any number of review cycles (e.g. approval to send a Committee Specification Draft to public review, collecting comments, making edits to the Committee Specification Draft, etc.). The initial public review of a public review draft must take place for a minimum of 30 days, and any subsequent reviews must be held for a minimum of 15 days. Changes made to a committee draft after a review must be clearly identified in any subsequent review, and the subsequent review shall be limited in scope to changes made in the previous review. Before starting another review cycle the revisions must be re-approved as a Committee Specification Draft or Committee Note Draft, as appropriate, and then approved to go to public review by the TC.

If any changes that are not Non-Material are made to the draft after the public review, whether as a result of public review comments or from TC Member input, then the TC must conduct another review cycle. The draft may not be considered for approval by the TC as a Committee Specification or Committee Note until it has undergone a review cycle during which it has received no comments that result in any changes that are not Non-Material.

If only Non-Material Changes are made to the draft after the public review, whether as a result of public review comments or from TC Member input, then the TC may proceed with the approval as a Committee Specification or Committee Note in accordance with Section 3.3 without conducting another public review cycle.

3.3 Approval of a Committee Specification or Committee Note

After the public review, the TC may approve the Committee Specification Draft as a Committee Specification or the Committee Note Draft as a Committee Note. If any comments have been received during the most recent Public Review period, that vote may not commence any earlier than 7 days after the last day of that Public Review. The approval of a Committee Specification or Committee Note shall require a Special Majority Vote. The TC Chair shall notify the TC Administrator that the TC has resolved to request a Special Majority Vote for the advancement of the draft as a Committee Specification or Committee Note, and provide to the TC Administrator the URI for the meeting minutes which record the TC’s resolution, including the location of the editable versions of the files and any other ballot details (for example, Designated Cross-Reference Change motions). The TC Administrator shall set up and conduct the ballot to approve the Committee Specification or Committee Note.

If Non-Material Changes have been made to the draft since its last public review then the TC must provide an acceptable summary that is clear and comprehensible of the changes made since the last public review and a statement that the changes are all Non-Material to TC Administration. TC Administration shall announce the opening of the ballot to approve the draft to the OASIS Membership and optionally on other public mail lists along with the summary of changes and the TC’s statement. If any Eligible Person objects that the changes are not Non-Material before the ballot closes, TC Administration shall halt the ballot and require the TC to submit the draft for another public review cycle. If such objection is made after the ballot has closed, TC Administration shall reject it and the results of the ballot shall stand.

3.4 Approval of an OASIS Standard

Approval of an OASIS Standard is a three-step process:

1. Submission of a Candidate OASIS Standard to the TC Administrator,
2. Completion of a public review lasting a minimum of 60 days, and
3. A membership-wide ballot.

3.4.1 Submission of a Candidate OASIS Standard

After the approval of a Committee Specification, and after three Statements of Use referencing the Committee Specification have been presented to the TC, a TC may resolve by Special Majority Vote to submit the Committee Specification as a Candidate OASIS Standard. At least one of the Statements of Use must come from an OASIS Organizational Member. The TC may decide to withdraw the submission, by Special Majority Vote, at any time until the final approval. Upon Resolution of the TC to submit the specification, its Chair shall submit the following items to the TC Administrator:

(a) Links to the Candidate OASIS Standard in the TC’s document repository, and any appropriate supplemental documentation, all of which must be written using the OASIS templates in effect at the time of the Committee Specification approval vote. The specification must not have been changed between its approval as a Committee Specification and its submission to OASIS for consideration as an OASIS Standard, except for the changes allowed in Section 2.18(6).

(b) The editable version of all files that are part of the Candidate OASIS Standard;

(c) Certification by the TC that all schema and XML instances included in the specification, whether by inclusion or reference, including fragments of such, are well formed, and that all expressions are valid;

(d) A clear English-language summary of the specification;

(e) A statement regarding the relationship of this specification to similar work of other OASIS TCs or other standards developing organizations;

(f) The Statements of Use presented above;

(g) The beginning and ending dates of the public review(s), a pointer to the announcement of the public review(s), and a pointer to an account of each of the comments/issues raised during the public review period(s), along with its resolution;

(h) An account of and results of the voting to approve the specification as a Candidate OASIS Standard, including the date of the ballot and a pointer to the ballot;

(i) An account of or pointer to votes and comments received in any earlier attempts to standardize substantially the same specification, together with the originating TC’s response to each comment;

(j) A pointer to the publicly visible comments archive for the originating TC; and

(k) The length of the Candidate OASIS Standard public review, if greater than the required 60 days.

The TC Administrator shall complete administrative processing and checking for completeness and correctness of the submission within 15 days. If the submission is incomplete it shall be rejected but may be resubmitted at a later time.

No part of the submission may be changed or altered in any way after being submitted to the TC Administrator, including by Errata or corrigenda. Errata, corrigenda or other changes to an OASIS Standard are not permitted after its submission for OASIS Standard approval.

3.4.2 Public Review of a Candidate OASIS Standard

A public review of the Candidate OASIS Standard shall be announced by the TC Administrator to the OASIS Membership list and optionally on other public mail lists.

Comments from non-TC Members must be collected via the TC’s archived public comment facility; comments made through any other means (unless made by a TC Member via the TC email list) shall not be accepted. The TC must acknowledge the receipt of each comment, track the comments received, and post to its primary e-mail list the disposition of each comment at the end of the review period.

No changes may be made to the Candidate OASIS Standard during a review. If the TC decides by Full Majority Vote that changes are needed, then the specification must be withdrawn from review after the Chair informs the TC Administrator.

Upon completion of the public review, the Chair must notify the TC Administrator of the results.

• If no comments were received, the TC Administrator must start the ballot for OASIS Standard approval within 7 days of notification.
• If comments were received, but no changes are to be made to the Candidate OASIS Standard, the Chair will request that the TC Administrator start a Special Majority Ballot for the TC to approve continuing with the OASIS Standard ballot. The TC Administrator will begin said ballot within 7 days of receipt. Upon successful completion of that ballot, the TC Administrator will, within 7 days, begin the ballot for OASIS Standard approval.
• If comments were received that result in a modification to the Candidate OASIS Standard, the editors(s) will prepare a revised specification to be approved as a Committee Specification Draft by the TC and proceed with a subsequent Public Review as noted in Section 3.2. Before resubmission the specification must be approved as a Committee Specification.

3.4.3 Balloting for OASIS Standard approval

In votes upon Candidate OASIS Standards, each OASIS Organizational Member at the time the ballot is issued shall be entitled to cast one vote. Votes shall be cast via the publicly archived electronic voting facility supplied by OASIS. A ballot announcement will be sent to each member entitled to vote and shall specify the ballot closing date and time. Ballots shall be publicly visible during voting. Eligible voters may change their vote up until the end of the 14-day voting period. The results of a vote on a proposed standard shall be provided to the membership and to the TC no later than seven days following the close of the voting period.

If at the end of the voting period at least 15 percent of the voting OASIS Membership has voted to approve the proposed standard, and if no votes have been cast to disapprove the proposed standard, it shall become an OASIS Standard immediately following the end of the voting period. If negative votes have been cast amounting to 25 percent or more of the votes cast, or if less than 15 percent of the voting OASIS Membership has cast positive votes to approve the proposed standard, the ballot is deemed to have failed and the submission fails.

However, if negative votes are cast amounting to less than 25 percent of the votes that have been cast, the TC shall be notified of the negative votes, after which the TC shall have 30 days to take one of the following actions by Resolution of a Special Majority Vote: (a) request the TC Administrator to approve the specification as submitted despite the negative votes; (b) withdraw the submission entirely; or (c) submit an amended specification, in which case the amended submission shall be considered as if it were a new submission, except that information regarding previous votes and any disposition of comments received in previous votes shall accompany the amended submission. If the originating TC upon notification of negative votes takes no formal action within the 30 days allocated for consideration of the results, then the specification shall not become an OASIS Standard.

Failure of a ballot for any reason shall not prevent a later version of the same specification from being submitted again as specified in this section.

3.5 Approved Errata

A TC may approve a set of Errata to an OASIS Standard which it developed as “Approved Errata” by:

(a) Adopting the set of proposed corrections as a Committee Specification Draft, in the form of a list of changes, and optionally accompanied by a copy of the original OASIS Standard text marked to incorporate the proposed changes.

(b) Confirming by Full Majority Vote that the proposed corrections do not constitute a Substantive Change.

(c) Submitting the proposed corrections for a 15-day public review, and completing that review, pursuant to Section 3.2.

(d) After the public review, confirming the proposed corrections as Approved Errata by a Full Majority Vote.

Once approved, the Approved Errata shall be made available with the OASIS Standard it corrects, in any publication of that OASIS Standard. Disposition of Approved Errata must be identified in the subsequent Committee Specification Public Review Draft of the corrected OASIS Standard.

A TC may not adopt Approved Errata to an OASIS Standard more than once in any six-month period.

Section 4. Board of Directors Involvement in the TC Process

4.1 OASIS TC Administrator

The “OASIS TC Administrator,” as defined in Section 1 of this TC Process, shall act as the Technical Committee Liaison to the Board for the purpose of keeping the Board apprised of activities related to the TC Process. The specific duties of the TC Liaison shall be specified by the Board in consultation with the TC Administrator but shall, at a minimum, provide for the submission to the Board of a notice when a proposal has been received for the creation of a new TC and when a TC submits a Committee Specification as a Candidate OASIS Standard. Such notice shall be delivered via email to the Board immediately upon the receipt of the submission by the TC Administrator. The TC Administrator shall also send a copy of proposals for the creation of new TCs to the Technical Advisory Board (TAB) for their comment.

Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in this TC Process, upon majority vote of the members of the Board at a meeting thereof duly called and constituted, the creation of a new TC may be prevented, or a proposed OASIS Standard may be withheld from voting by OASIS Membership; the proposal or the submission shall be returned to the proposers or the sponsoring TC for additional consideration, with an explanation of the reasons for such action.

The Board of Directors may amend this TC Process at any time and from time to time at its sole discretion.

4.2 Appeals

Any Eligible Person who believes that

• an action taken or not taken by or with respect to TCs, or
• an action taken or not taken by the TC Administrator,

is in violation of the procedures set forth in this TC Process or OASIS policies specified by the OASIS Board of Directors, may appeal such action or inaction.

Appellants shall file a complaint within 30 days of the action being appealed or at any time with respect to an inaction. The complaint shall state the nature of the objection(s), including any direct and material adverse effects upon the appellants; the section(s) of this TC Process or OASIS policies at issue; the actions or inactions at issue; and the specific remedial action(s) that would satisfy the appellants’ concerns. Previous efforts to resolve the objection(s) and the outcome of each shall be noted.

Appeals regarding actions or inactions of a TC must be made to the TC Administrator.

Appeals regarding actions or inactions of the TC Administrator must be made to the OASIS Board of Directors.

In the case of an appeal to the TC Administrator: within 15 days of receipt of the complaint, the TC Administrator shall provide a copy of the complaint to the TC; and within 30 days of such receipt, shall render a decision, with a copy to the TC.

In the case of an appeal to the OASIS Board of Directors: such appeal, in order to be valid, shall be sent to the board comment list (oasis-board-comment@lists.oasis-open.org) and the relevant TC(s). The Board shall hold a hearing (with the appellants invited) within 45 days of receipt of the appeal. The Board shall render its decision within 30 days. The decision of the Board shall be final.

The OASIS Board of Directors has the authority to effect such remedial action as may be necessary to remedy a complaint brought under this TC Process.

Section 5. Application to Existing TCs

This TC Process applies to previously established TCs upon its adoption.

Dates Approved:  Wed, 2012-07-25 Effective:  Wed, 2012-08-01