From patrick@durusau.net Fri May 25 14:40:49 2007 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Date: Fri, 25 May 2007 17:40:13 -0400 From: Patrick Durusau Subject: What Hat am I Wearing? To: Dave Welsh , Doug Mahugh , Frank Farance , Jerry Smith , Jon Bosak , "Levine, Leonard F CIV DISA GES-E" , Norm Walsh , "Lynne A. Price" , Rex Jaeschke , Richard Barber , Robert Weir , Steve Carton , Tim Schoechle , "Mason, James David (MXM)" , Kevin Trainor , Eduardo Gutentag , Ron Silletti , joseph.messina@bp.com Reply-to: patrick@durusau.net X-Accept-Language: en-us, en X-PMX-Version: 5.2.0.264296 X-ASG-Debug-ID: 1180129234-33fd00050000-F3fpwQ X-Barracuda-URL: http://10.10.100.8:8000/cgi-bin/mark.cgi X-Barracuda-Connect: unknown[66.110.197.207] X-Barracuda-Start-Time: 1180129234 X-ASG-Whitelist: Client X-ASG-Orig-Subj: What Hat am I Wearing? X-Barracuda-Virus-Scanned: by Barracuda Spam Firewall at insimail.com Greetings! A bit later today than I had hoped but I wanted everyone to spend some time over the holiday thinking about what hat they will have on at our next V1 meeting. The purpose of V1 as I understand it is to develop positions for the US on proposed standards that reflect not only a consensus of the committee but that are also based upon a careful evaluation of any proposed standard. That is to say that when we are discussing any proposal, even though we all have our own opinions coming into the discussion, we must be willing to listen to what others have to say (listening is not being quiet while waiting to say what you think should be said) and to expect others to listen to us when we are speaking. The only hat that any of us should be wearing, despite our prior opinions, is as a member of the V1 committee. And as V1 members, the most pressing item on our agenda is the formulation of a position on DIS 29500. It would be a serious mistake for anyone to enter our discussions with the goal of either passing DIS 29500 as is or simply stopping DIS 29500. Either position would be a disservice to DIS 29500 and its proposer, not to mention not being in keeping with our duties as members of V1. Like any other standards proposal, DIS 29500 merits our careful consideration and comments that we think will lead to an improvement of the proposal. We will no doubt disagree on what comments will improve the proposal and that is to be expected. But, if we really work at it I think we can understand each others comments and concerns, resulting in what I hope will be a US NB position that advances a standard that results in the public benefit that is the goal of all standards. As many of you know, I am the co-editor of ISO/IEC 26300. In the course of that proposal becoming an ISO standard the issue was raised that it used URIs and not IRIs. I suppose I could have simply said nothing so that DIS 29500 would be meet with that objection when all the NB votes were tallied. But, as a member of V1, I have a responsibility to point out what I think will be issues so that the proposer has as much time as possible to think about how to cure those issues. I am not venturing an opinion on what the resolution of that issue by the committee will be but I think it illustrates the point I am trying to make. We have a lot of work before us given the length of the standard and I think that can be best accomplished by wearing only our V1 hats during our meetings. Even so, I realize that we will have vigorous discussions and that is a good thing. But, vigorous doesn't not include a lack of civility or taking up committee time that is in rather short supply on issues that are not really relevant to giving DIS 29500 our full attention. I hope everyone is looking forward to a great weekend! Patrick -- Patrick Durusau Patrick@Durusau.net Chair, V1 - Text Processing: Office and Publishing Systems Interface Co-Editor, ISO 13250, Topic Maps -- Reference Model Member, Text Encoding Initiative Board of Directors, 2003-2005 Topic Maps: Human, not artificial, intelligence at work!