Why I'm opposed to having an extra WG4 teleconference in January 2012

[Rex Jaeschke]

Near the end of the 2011-11-29 teleconference, Murata-san proposed that we
schedule an extra teleconference in January to deal with Part 3 issues.

 

Although I have no problem with WG4 working to improve Part 3, I object to
having this extra call, for the following reasons:

 

1 .      As I asked on the recent call, why is fixing Part 3 issues so
time-critical? We've heard from a number of members that at the least some
things need to be clarified, tweaked, and maybe even rewritten. However, I
have seen no evidence from any marketplace-relevant consumer or producer
that the failure to fix Part 3 in the very near future will cause problems.
Whatever the fixed Part 3 contains, it's at least a couple of years away
from being adopted/published. And given that the major implementers have a
2-4-year product cycle, and aren't likely to plan on implementing any
feature that is not yet approved, changes in that Part could be at least 5
years away from appearing in their implementations. So, what's the business
case for being in a hurry? Haven't complaints in the past been about the
haste in which the original ECMA-376 was produced?

 

2.      Earlier this year, WG4 members deliberately chose to reduce the
number of Face-to-Face (F2F) meetings from 4/year to 3/year. In so doing,
they gave up at least 20 hours of non-administrative meeting time/year,
which is equivalent to 10-12 teleconferences (allowing for the overhead of
administration on each call). Presumably, WG4 members figured that they
didn't need this extra time, so why now, fewer than 6 months after we
reduced meeting frequency, should we start expanding again?

 

3.      Regarding F2F meetings, rarely have we actually used all the time
we've assigned for them. If we plan and prepare properly, it seems to me
that we'll have ample time to discuss Part 3 issues (as well as other
things) in the 3-full-day F2F in Prague.

 

4.      We have a teleconference scheduled for 2012-01-05. Right now, the
main agenda item for that meeting is dealing with comments from the AMD2
ballot. Assuming there are few such comments, if any, we may well have time
to also discuss Part 3. Someone suggested that by having an extra call, Alex
(who has interest/expertise in this area and who is not expected to be in
Prague) might be able to participate. As we and he have known since Busan
about the January meeting date, why not see if he can participate in that
call?

 

5.      As I've been posting in the proposed Business Plan on the wiki, we
need to have a defensible plan and timeline so members can each establish
their own priorities w.r.t resource allocation. For members who don't have a
day job or who are paid to participate specifically on standards committees,
it's usually not a problem to schedule extra calls at short notice, but that
is not the real world for most members, most of whom already do NOT
participate on calls.

 

6.      I believe that the scheduling of extra teleconferences should be
used in special/emergency cases only. For example, we might be required to
form a position within a short time constraint for JTC 1 or a liaison, or we
might have to deal with an unexpectedly large number of comments on a
ballot. As for the rest, we should make a sensible business plan with time
line and stick to it.

 

Rex

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