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RE: stds-802-16: implementation of 802.16/BRAN-HA agreement (was RE:stds-802-16:Request to amend joint 802-16/ETSI-BRAN-HA minutes)
I for myself find our Chairman's argument ignores an important factor. That
factor is that most of us (is it 99%?) participate in the IEEE 802.16
because our company send us to these meetings (paying our time and our trip
costs) to represent their interests, and not to delegate that job to some
team. Considering that we are in a competitive environment, I for one find
our Chairman's proposal(if I understood his proposal correctly) that can
force me to delegate my company's representation to a team (that will likely
include my company competitors ) unacceptable.
Dr. Demosthenes J. Kostas
Director, Industry Standards
Adaptive Broadband Corporation
3314 Dartmouth Ave
Dallas, TX 75205 USA
tel: 214 520 8411
fax: 214 520 9802
-----Original Message-----
From: Roger B. Marks [mailto:marks@boulder.nist.gov]
Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2000 3:33 PM
To: stds-802-16@ieee.org
Subject: stds-802-16: implementation of 802.16/BRAN-HA agreement (was
RE:stds-802-16:Request to amend joint 802-16/ETSI-BRAN-HA minutes)
On the question of the minutes of the 802.16/BRAN-HA Joint Meeting, I
support Scott's interpretation of Robert's Rules. Also, since no
actions were taken and since we were not meeting as a unit of 802.16,
I don't think there is any point in asking for approval of these
minutes. [Note that the document is filed under liaison reports, not
under 802.16 documents. which is where we keep 802.16 minutes.]
With regard to the 802.16/BRAN-HA agreement, the relevant minutes are
those of the 802.16 Closing Plenary. These show a successful motion
of Mr. Kiernan, seconded by Mr. Kostas, to accept the draft agreement
<http://ieee802/16/liaison/docs/80216l-00_12.pdf>. {Following that
motion, I have initiated an effort to get the approval of the IEEE
Standards Association on this document; I expect this to be finalized
by very early June. For the IEEE-SA, I prepared a fact statement
<http://ieee802/16/liaison/bran/ieee_bran_facts.html>.}
Now that the agreement has been approved and submitted to higher
levels, it is not practical for 802.16 to try and revise it. In my
opinion, that's OK, because I think it is a fine agreement.
Regarding document exchange, the relevant clause is:
"Copies of relevant working documents and drafts from either group
will be made available upon request. For this purpose,802.16 will
provide a password-protected web site for documents from both groups,
with access restricted to Members and Observers of 802.16 and to
individuals who have attended a recent BRAN-HA meeting."
The 802.16 and BRAN representatives spent time working out this
mechanism, and I think is a good one. A key phrase is "on request."
This means that _our_ liaison needs to request documents to ensure
that they are provided to _our_ participants. What are the
alternatives? Do we want _all_ BRAN documents on our site? I don't
think so. Do we want access the entire BRAN site? We haven't been
offered it, and I don't think we will be. Do we want the BRAN
representative to determine what documents we have access to? Again,
I don't think so. We need to be responsible for ourselves, which
means that we need to trust our own liaison(s) to be closely involved
in the BRAN-HA process and to call our attention to whatever is
important there.
Of course, I expect and hope that our liaisons will have a good
working relationship and will call each other's attention to
important documents. There isn't anything in the agreement to prevent
this, and we should encourage it. I am trying to see what could fall
through the cracks here, and I don't see much. For instance, you
could imagine a situation in which we wanted the BRAN people to see
one of our documents but their liaison didn't want them to see it. I
consider this too unlikely to worry about.
In my opinion, the real issue that 802.16 needs to face does not
involve negotiations with BRAN; it involves our internal decisions on
how we establish our own liaison team and what authority we give it
to speak for us. I am thinking of a liaison team with these
responsibilities:
*bring important 802.16 documents and information to the attention of BRAN
*respond to input that BRAN provides to 802.16 (particularly when
comments are rejected, as specified in the draft agreement)
*bring all relevant BRAN-HA documents to 802.16
*inform 802.16 when BRAN-HA is open to input
*provide inputs to BRAN-HA
-draft the inputs
-pass drafts to the 802.16 reflector for comment
-resolve those comments
I think that the last part will be tricky. Provided that we have a
active liaison team that fully represents the interests of 802.16, I
would like to see them empowered to make timely decisions based on
the comments they receive. On the other hand, we need to balance this
against our members' interests. We need a clear policy that we can
all understand.
I think that the draft agreement provides every opportunity to reach
a joint standard, provided that we can empower an active liaison team
that wants to make the agreement happen and is willing to commit to a
big task. I'd like to see us come out of Session #8 with such a team
in place.
Roger
>Hello,
>
>[To avoid minutiae, skip to the 3rd paragraph]
>
>After checking Robert's Rules (note that Roger added to the 802.16 web site
a
>link to an on-line version: http://www.constitution.org/rror/rror--00.htm),
I
>agree with Scott, that minutes should record just motions and their
>resolutions.
>But if Demos still wants to amend the minutes, even if it's outside the
normal
>scope of the minutes, he's free to do so by making a motion to amend
>at the next
>meeting, after someone moves to accept the minutes. I also feel that
>discussions like this email exchange are good, and should not be
discouraged,
>because the more issues we resolve before the next meeting, the more time
we
>save discussing them at the next meeting. So, I recommend after this email
>discussion is complete, if Demos still wants to change the minutes, he come
>prepared at the next meeting with a concisely written motion to amend.
>
>And now for some reality. Not many people read the minutes until
>something goes
>wrong. The heart of the issue that I think Demos wants to document
>is that the
>procedure for working out document exchange, review and comment submittal
>between BRAN/HA and 802.16 hasn't yet been worked out and has been taken
>"off-line." So, I would advise that this email discussion evolve into a
>discussion about the issue rather than nit-picking on rules and minutes.
Even
>though we don't have "Robert's Rules of Email Order," this discussion is
being
>automatically recorded and reaches the desk of everyone involved. IMHO,
it's
>much more effective than minutes.
>
> >From an 802.16-centric perspective, I for one am not that interested in
>committee-fying comment and review of BRAN/HA's documents. I would like to
>avoid spending much time in 802.16 face-to-face meetings reviewing their
>documents and agreeing on comments to submit to BRAN/HA. I think the best
we
>can do is be notified of relevant BRAN/HA drafts via email (802.16
reflector)
>and proceed with a less formal review process. (Note that BRAN/HA
>has their own
>reflector to which anyone can subscribe, that announces many things other
than
>relevant drafts.) Individuals in 802.16 can recognize important issues in
>BRAN/HA drafts and bring them up for discussion on this reflector. If
anyone
>senses consensus on an issue, that person can formulate an appropriate
motion
>for the next 802.16 meeting, in the plenary and/or appropriate task
>group. Such
>a motion would charge a liaison to bring a change request to a BRAN
meeting.
>
>Best Regards,
>
>Brian Petry
>3Com
>
>
>
>
>
>"Kostas, Demos" <dkostas@adaptivebroadband.com> on 05/23/2000 06:38:11 AM
>
>Sent by: "Kostas, Demos" <dkostas@adaptivebroadband.com>
>
>
>To: "'Scott Marin'" <smarin@spectrapoint.com>, "Kostas, Demos"
> <dkostas@adaptivebroadband.com>
>cc: "'Roger B. Marks'" <marks@boulder.nist.gov>, stds-802-16@ieee.org,
> "'Per.J.Emanuelsson @telia.se'" <Per.J.Emanuelsson@telia.se> (Brian
> Petry/PA/3Com)
>Subject: RE: stds-802-16: Request to amend joint 802-16/ETSI-BRAN-HA minut
es
>
>
>
>
>Scott
>I find your explanation inconsistent with my 22 years experience in
>standards fora participation. An event has occurred at a meeting and a
>member considers it important to ask that the event be recorded in the
>meeting minutes. The only question that should remain is whether the
>proposed wording accurately describes the event. Accuracy of the proposed
>wording definitely requires to be voted upon or the chair/secretary can
>informally ask those in attendance if they consider that the proposed
>wording accurately describes what has happened. If no one objects then the
>wording is assumed as accurately describing the event, otherwise the
>proposed statement's accuracy in describing the event is voted upon.
>
>I am sorry for my ignorance but where is the rule of how and to record the
>event that you enforcing described? Are we following Roberts Rules or
>adapting them as we go along? Kindly explain.
>I thank you.
>
>Dr. Demosthenes J. Kostas
>Director, Industry Standards
>Adaptive Broadband Corporation
>
>3314 Dartmouth Ave
>Dallas, TX 75205 USA
>
>tel: 214 520 8411
>fax: 214 520 9802
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Scott Marin [mailto:smarin@spectrapoint.com]
>Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2000 3:38 AM
>To: Kostas, Demos
>Cc: 'Roger B. Marks'; stds-802-16@ieee.org; 'Per.J.Emanuelsson@telia.se'
>Subject: stds-802-16: Request to amend joint 802-16/ETSI-BRAN-HA minutes
>
>
>
>Demos,
>
>Thanks for the suggested change to the minutes. I certainly encourage
people
>to
>read and suggest corrections to the minutes.
>
>However, after careful consideration, I'm going to recommend against
>incorporating the changes you've suggested for the following reasons:
>
>1) The instruction to secretaries that I've read suggest that minutes
should
>be
>limited to motions, decisions that are voted on, and formal decisions taken
>by
>the group. Discussions are not normally recorded. To avoid potential
>editorial
>bias by the secretary, I've attempted to keep debates, discussions,
>comments,
>and other informal points out of meeting minutes.
>
>2) The plan is to capture agreements between the organizations in writing
>per
>the draft agreement document that Roger presented. The comments by chairman
>or
>others might present interpretations of the written agreement, but I don't
>consider the comments made by Per or Roger as binding unless they're in the
>agreement document or they're based on a successful motion. Placing the
>comment
>your suggested in the minutes would not make the point binding; although
>some
>people might interpret such notes as binding.
>
>3) The joint meeting was basically in informative liaison meeting and not a
>formal meeting of the respective groups. Even if a motion had been made and
>accepted to formalize the points you raised, it's not clear the a vote on
>such a
>motion would have been valid because there was no basis for either chairman
>to
>accept such a motion.
>
>Perhaps the best way forward is to make sure the points you've raised are
>included in the agreement document between the organizations.
>
>Regards,
>Scott
>
>
>
>4) "Kostas, Demos" wrote:
>
>> Scott Hi!
>> There was an important result of this joint IEEE 802.16 - ETSI BRAN
>meeting
>> that the minutes do not reflect. According to my notes this result
(which
>> should be noted in the minutes) is as follows:
>>
>> There was a discussion on the exchange of Working Documents between IEEE
>> 802.16 and ETSI BRAN. Dr. Demos Kostas suggested that the proposed
>> procedure of the Ad Hoc Group for exchanging only specific Working
>Documents
>> upon request was an unproductive bureaucratic procedure that warranted
>> streamlining. Mr. Per Emanuelsson agreed that it was difficult for one
to
>> request Working Documents that one was not aware of their existence and
>> added that the ETSI BRAN Hyperacid Working Documents could be made
>available
>> to IEEE 802.16 without a special request. Dr. Roger Marks agreed about
>> working out the details of posting of the ETSI BRAN Hyperacid Working
>> Documents for the IEEE 802.16 off-line.
>>
>> Dr. Demosthenes J. Kostas
>> Director, Industry Standards
>> Adaptive Broadband Corporation
>>
>> 3314 Dartmouth Ave
>> Dallas, TX 75205 USA
>>
>> tel: 214 520 8411
>> fax: 214 520 9802
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Roger B. Marks [mailto:marks@boulder.nist.gov]
>> Sent: Friday, May 19, 2000 6:41 AM
>> To: stds-802-16@ieee.org
>> Subject: stds-802-16: Published: Minutes of Joint Meeting between IEEE
>> 802.16 and ETSI BRAN HIPERACCESS conducted on 5 May 2000 at 802.16
>> Session #7
>>
>> Title: Minutes of Joint Meeting between IEEE 802.16 and ETSI BRAN
>> HIPERACCESS conducted on 5 May 2000 at 802.16 Session #7
>>
>> Document Number: IEEE 802.16l-00/13
>>
>> URL: <http://ieee802.org/16/liaison/docs/80216l-00_13.pdf>
>>
>> Source: Scott Marin <mailto:smarin@spectrapoint.com>