[Coin-discuss] "To be or not to be" (a standards promoting body)

[Leo Lopes]

Dear Colleagues,

    I am sure The Bard thought of the words above in a far more general 
context than IT standards. But fortunately he wrote them before the 
Congress extended copyright protections indefinetely, so I am free to 
reuse them creatively.

    Sorry also about the cross-posting. I actually think this discussion 
is relevant to all three groups, but PLEASE REPLY ONLY TO coin-standards 
and lets try to move the discussion there after this general message.

    Now to the business at hand:

    My reading of the Sunday meeting in Denver was that we agreed on the 
following items (1-5):

       1) COIN does not want to be OASIS. OASIS does a great job at the 
formal parts of the standards process, and we are not currently capable 
of or interested in competing with them on that aspect.

       2) Some of the more technical work has advanced significantly 
independently, but has not been discussed widely. We think that the fee 
structure of OASIS membership and the relatively complex nature of the 
OASIS process has something to do with that.

       3) Many of the components needed to support the technical aspects 
of standards development (i.e., meeting systems, etc.) would benefit 
COIN's main mission.

       4) While many commercial interests have expressed some interest 
in standards formats for instances, we still have a ways to go in 
proving to them that this effort adds value to their operations.

       5) We agreed to make a decision on whether or not COIN will 
support technical aspects of standards development by Annapolis.

    Those are my assumptions. Based on those, I would like to put forth 
some proposals. So if you have any objections or additions to the above, 
please bring them out as early as possible.

    Proposals (1-4):

       1) On development infrastructure: COIN already has: a CVS system; 
mailing lists; What else do we need? I think a calendar and meeting 
schedule might be nice. Web space for things like Item 2 below. Other 
requests?

       2) On commercial cases: John Fuller was kind to offer an example 
case. I personally would like to see a committee set up a couple of 
these that we can provide as a one-page summary to anyone (commercial or 
not) who may be interested in them. Volunteers?

       3) On scope: While my vision is that of a completely web-services 
enabled architecture for operations research, in the direction Jun is 
pursuing, I think we would be wise to start with a simple (solved) 
problem, that of LP and MIP. This will help determine the feasibility of 
using COIN to help with technical standards work.

       4) On OASIS: I propose that Bob, Kipp, John Fuller, and I 
continue moving the formal OASIS process forward, and that one of us or 
someone else who is able to join OASIS to be formally responsible for 
making sure that the OASIS (formal) and COIN (techical) aspects of the 
standards development process do not diverge.

Please let me know what you think about these. We have only 10 weeks to 
Annapolis.

Cheers,
Leo.
   

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Leonardo B. Lopes                                    leo at sie.arizona.edu
Assistant Professor                                        (520)626-1780
SIE - University of Arizona  http://www.sie.arizona.edu/faculty/leolopes