[UPS] follow-up from workshop: proposal for technical working group

[Simeon Warner]

I agree with Hussein's eagerness to get a technical working
group going with a separate mailing list. His proposal seems good 
and I volunteer to maintain a website of issues unless someone 
has a gloriously automatic system to offer. 

Cheers,
Simeon.

[I'm going on vacation tomorrow -- I look forward to catching
 up with the discussion when I get back.]

On Tue, 13 Jun 2000, Hussein Suleman wrote:
> let me start by saying that the workshop at DL00 was a great success for
> the OA initiative in that there was implicit agreement on many issues,
> including the following (at least from my perspective) :-
> 
> 1. there is a need to impose some form of formal organizational
> structure on the initiative for more effective/efficient management
> 2. the standards are not set in stone and we can change them to better
> suit the existing and impending range of applications
> 3. we need a thorough evaluation-based re-engineering of the standards,
> ultimately leading to a "version 2"
> 
> chiefly because of time constraints we were not able to delve further
> into the solutions to each of these - i'm going to try to address the
> last 2 points.
> 
> to take the initiative, i want to propose the formation of an open
> working group to deal with technical issues. i do not believe this
> mailing list is the forum for discussions on "semicolons and slashes",
> as we need to separate policy/outreach from the technicalities of
> implementation.
> 
> im writing this up somewhat formally, because even though we dont need a
> rigid structure, we need to state what we're about to avoid
> organizational snafu's later ...
> 
> ===
> Proposal: Working Group on Technical Issues related to Specifications of
> the Open Archives Initiative
> 
> Context:
> A working group of the Open Archive initiative.
> 
> Objectives:
> 1. Evaluate current specifications and make recommendations for changes
> to address current and future problems
> 2. Produce a "version 2" specification by December 2000 (i recall this
> was suggested at the workshop)
> 3. Provide a forum for discussion of technical issues not of interest to
> the general community
> 
> Membership:
> Open to all who are interested.
> 
> Suggested Methods of Communication:
> 1. A mailing list for separate discussion of in-depth technical issues
> (Ed Fox and I just created such a list in case we need one)
> 2. A website listing all open/resolved issues, with history,
> explanations, etc. (anyone want to maintain this? or does someone have
> an issue-tracking system we can use?)
> 3. A meeting of protocol implementors to discuss/evaluate "version 2"
> specifications/implementations before formally recommending a change of
> specifications (this was suggested at the workshop).
> 
> Management:
> 1. One or more Website Administrators if necessary (voluntary positions)
> 2. One of more Mailing List Administrators if necessary (voluntary
> positions)
> 3. One or more Coordinators to coordinate the activities of the working
> group and liaise with the OAi Steering Committee (nominated by working
> group).
> ===
> 
> i know this sounds like overkill, but im a strong advocate of building
> organization from the ground up. in essence, all im proposing is that
> those of us interested in technical issues join a new mailing list,
> someone volunteer to manage it, someone volunteer to manage an issue
> list and we nominate coordinator/s ...
> 
> thoughts ? (if there are no principle objections, it may be better to
> simply initiate the second mailing list and move further discussion
> there)
> 
> i want to put off responding to Simeon and Robert's comments until we
> take a decision on where that discussion is to take place.
> 
> and, lastly, before we publish the "proceedings" of the workshop, if
> anyone who attended wants to add a position statement you can still do
> so through the workshop website at http://purl.org/net/oaijune00/
> 
> ttfn
> hussein