"A neat house is the sign of a
wasted life"
Sign seen behind the bar of "The
Newport Inn", Braishfield, Hampshire, UK.
Yours, Mike.
Strategist - Emerging Technologies, SCA & SDO.
Co Chair OASIS SCA Assembly TC.
IBM Hursley Park, Mail Point 146, Winchester, SO21 2JN, Great Britain.
Phone & FAX: +44-1962-818014 Mobile: +44-7802-467431
Email:
From:
To:
Patrick Durusau <>
Cc:
Date:
28/04/2010 22:08
Subject:
Re: [chairs] This Old House (OASIS)
- Further Response to Peter Brown
Oh, I think this is more like saying don't trust a
house builder whose
toolbox is not neatly organized. Maybe, maybe not. I think
it is
something that would need to be demonstrated, not assumed.
I can imagine that creative chaos, in prescribed bounds, can be quite
useful. The question is where do you draw a box around it and say, "This
is an OASIS deliverable and we all need to be doing this the same way",
versus, "This is a TC working style detail"? I think the
OASIS promise is
in transparency and openness, that the messy day-to-day work is visible,
not that it is always pretty.
In any case, it is a trade-off, between the benefits of order and the
administrative cost to monitor and enforce the order, or the technology
costs to acquire and support tools that enforce the order for us.
-Rob
Patrick Durusau <> wrote on 04/28/2010 04:49:06
PM:
>
> Peter Brown asked about other areas that need improvement at OASIS.
>
> I would observe that a standards organization should follow some
> standard practice in how information about its work is stored. It
> does not reflect well on OASIS or the work of its TCs if every TC
> has its own methods for recording information about its work. Such
> as minutes for example. Minutes should have a uniform format.
>
> Moreover, information about the work of a TC should have a uniform
> location. Documents should be versioned in some uniform fashion.
>
> OASIS resembles a "This Old House" where rooms (TCs) have
been added
> on to the main house in a haphazard fashion and each one is
> different that most of the others.
>
> That does not inspire a lot of confidence in the architect or in the
rooms.
>
> The argument will be made that TCs need the freedom to organize
> their work any way they want.
>
> *BS*
>
> TCs need the freedom to develop the intellectual content to their
> work. That is not the same thing as being creative with *where*
> information about their work is stored. Or the keeping of records,
> versions, etc.
>
> We do want people to find the information and have confidence in our
> work. Yes?
>
> To do that, we need to decide to remodel our "This Old House"
in
> such a way that documents for every TC are in the same locations
> (relative to the TC homepage), has the same version numbering, has
> the same structure for minutes, etc..
>
> Now is the time since discussions are underway about a new technical
> infrastructure to support TC work.
>
> Personally I would like to see that infrastructure support and
> require a work flow and structure that provides uniform access to
> the work of TCs. Save our creativity for the substance of our technical
work.
>
> It will take time to transition to a new way of documenting our work
> but having worked in several TCs, I have confident in the
> contributing members of our TCs that they are equal to the task.
>
> Hope everyone is having a great day!
>
> Patrick
>
> PS: I will complain even if my ideas about organizing TC work are
> accepted the first time the process goddess makes me change the way
> I am doing something. But, the purpose of standards is to
> facilitate access, not make to me (or others) happy.
> --
> Patrick Durusau
>
> Chair, V1 - US TAG to JTC 1/SC 34
> Convener, JTC 1/SC 34/WG 3 (Topic Maps)
> Editor, OpenDocument Format TC (OASIS), Project Editor ISO/IEC 26300
> Co-Editor, ISO/IEC 13250-1, 13250-5 (Topic Maps)
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