HistoryViewLinks to this page 2013 August 15 | 11:23 am

2013 August 12, 7:30 AM PDT / 10:30 AM EDT / 3:30 PM BST
(90 minutes)
Virtual meeting details

This is the 3rd meeting of the OSLC Member Section at OASIS Steering Committee.

Meeting Goals

  1. Welcome the new Steering Committee member (Mark Schulte of Boeing)
  2. Updates
    1. OSLC Core specification and TC creation
    2. OSLC Member Interest Survey
    3. Becoming a funded Member Section
    4. Liaison relationships

Contents


Agenda

1. New Steering Committee Member Introduction [discussion: 20m]

Executive Summary

by Mark Schulte

I look forward to the opportunity to work with you with regard to the OSLC standards from the standpoint of making truly integrated tool environments easier to achieve and more practical.

I really believe in the Linked Data approach over other techniques we have traditionally invested a lot of time and budget in (e.g. P2P integrations, single repository solutions) as I am sure others have as well. I also think the pipeline strategy makes a lot of sense in working to incrementally roll out (as I understand it) the various specifications over time and to focus on rolling out the highest need items first.

I have been involved in the past on research activities attempting to deal with the problem in terms of trying to standardize on specific interfaces and domain-specific toolchains and at the OMG (Object Modeling Group). Part of the issue in moving data not only involves standardizing on complex interfaces (to cover complex sets of data) but also involves figuring out what motivations vendors may have to support movement of data into or out of their toolsets. Obviously the OSLC approach addresses both of those by simplifying the interface data that needs to be supported and obviating the need to “move data”. And that is great.

I think my main hope is that we can just get as many of the specifications at a usable version and in place through OASIS as soon as possible. I know that last year at an OMG meeting where OSLC was being presented and introduced to the members of the Systems Engineering Special Interest Group (that works among other things on SysML, UPDM and interoperability standards between modeling tools) it was very encouraging that almost everyone agreed this was a good approach, but the only concern at that time was whether it could be considered a controlled standard (at that time only being available at open-services.net if I recall).

Similarly, at a Boeing Technical Conference a couple of weeks ago, I presented a high level overview of OSLC and Jazz and how that could affect the systems and software engineering environments available to us and I think a lot of people are anxious to see products available using this approach. To some degree, I think the key for us is to have specifications that are useful and mature enough to start ‘nudging’ the vendors that we already rely on to move in this direction.

Projected Order of Business

  1. Some remarks from the new member (to include a personal introduction and some thoughts about where they’d like OSLC to go)
  2. Welcome, introduction, and personal reflection from other Steering Committee members.

2. OSLC Core progress [review|discussion: 15m]

Executive Summary

by Steve Speicher

The Core WG has made recent progress on various topics such as:

  • vocabulary guidance
  • link guidance
  • deprecating redundant inverse links While also sketching and filling in the outline for the 3.0 spec.

The Core TC charter has been drafted and working to socialize with MS members to be co-submitters, see:

Projected Order of Business

  1. Status update from Steve on:
    1. OSLC Core WG progress
    2. progress on OASIS Charter submission
    3. outlook for Core 3, TC creation, and beyond
  2. Q&A + discussion

3. Update on OSLC Member Interest Survey [review|discussion: 15m]

Reference: 2013 OSLC MS Member Interest Survey

Executive Summary

by Sean Kennedy

To date, five interviews have been completed, one is scheduled, two are to be scheduled (these are with StC member companies), and fifteen organizations have not responded.
(Note: I have counted Creative Intellect and Koneksys as orgs, even though Bola and Axel have individual memberships.)
I will continue to follow up to schedule additional interviews with the goal of completing the exercise by the end of September.

Some key points:

  1. No one objects to the pipeline plan, but no one is pushing for a particular domain TC to be created in the first wave.
    1. One concern raised: we need to make sure domain TCs have in their charter to update the seed documents (specs) from the OSLC process so that they depend on the output(s) of the OASIS OSLC Core TC.
  2. Companies want to devote more resources to participating in OSLC, but in only a few cases might those resources be available in 2013 and others have no associated timetable.
  3. User Groups and the non-specification responsibilities of the Core TC (e.g. scenario prioritization and coordination) are activities many organizations believe they will use as starting points for their participation.
  4. Most of these organizations have started implementing OSLC, even if it is simply as prototype/POC.
    1. Not all are using Eclipse Lyo. In one case, the developers rejected it off hand because they didn’t develop in Java and didn’t use Eclipse.
      1. IBM’s OSLC Community Team is already looking into actions to help avoid similar situations and make it easier for developers to find the resources to help them implement OSLC-based integrations quickly.

Projected Order of Business

  1. Update and analysis from Sean
  2. Q&A + discussion

4. Update on becoming a funded Member Section [review|discussion: 20m]

Executive Summary

by Rainer Ersch

First (preliminary) results of investigation:

  • There is no need to create a “funding MS subcommittee” as discussed during last StC meeting
  • According to Scott, we can expect 15k funding out of the MS member fees
  • Budget can be increased through donations (or new members of MS during the year?)
  • Would IBM (or others) be interested to change some implicit donations to explicit (see below)
  • In order to deliver correct spending reports to OASIS, it seems to be worthwhile to install a treasurer
  • Spending plan is due in fall (exact date pending)
    => we should have a spending plan to decide on in Sept 2013 meeting
  • Preliminary topics for a spending plan below (categories are suggested by OASIS, not mandatory, others can be added)

Spending plan categories and possible OSLC spending plan items:

  • Outside contractors
    • Event management for OSLC summit etc.
  • Printing and design of collateral materials
    • Flyer, brochures, “OSLC rocks” buttons, etc
  • Conference participation; Conference organization
    • Conference fees, Travel expenses, for OSLC members giving promotional speech, running booth, etc.
    • reserve fund for costs not covered by registration fees
  • Travel expenses for OASIS staff conducting work on behalf of the Member Section, pre-approved by the Member Section Steering Committee
    • OSLC trainer conducting OSLC implementation workshops
    • StC meetings
    • visit liaison organization (to prepare liaisons, regular exchange)
    • visits to recruit new members
  • Dedicated IT and infrastructure costs
    • open-service.net (Wiki, mailing lists, …)
  • Dedicated technical resources
    • Web master
  • Professional fees specific to Member Section activities
    • key note speaker reimbursement
  • OASIS memberships and other payments specific to the Member Section
    • membership fee for liaison organizations

Projected Order of Business

  1. Update from Rainer

  2. Q&A + discussion

    • Q: on which spending items should be put in the budget submission (see below)
    • Q: shall we install a treasurer?
    • Q: shall we try to convert implicit to explicit donations?
    • Q: shall we start a fund raising campaign?

5. Update on the INCOSE liaison effort [review|discussion: 10m]

Executive Summary

by Andreas Keis

pending

Projected Order of Business

  1. Update from Andreas
  2. Q&A + discussion

Attendees

Steering Committee

  • Rainer Ersch, Senior Research Scientist at Siemens
  • David Ingram, Managing Director at Accenture
  • Andreas Keis, Manager, Software Engineering at EADS Innovation Works UK
  • Mik Kersten, CEO of Tasktop
  • Mark Schulte, Associate Technical Fellow at Boeing Defense Systems

Steering Committee Regrets

  • Bola Rotibi, Research Director at Creative Intellect
  • John Wiegand, Distinguished Engineer and Chief Architect for IBM Rational (StC Chairman)

Steering Committee Delegates

  • Sky Matthews, CTO IBM Rational Systems Products

Steering Committee Staff

  • Operations Coordinator, Sean Kennedy, IBM
  • Technical Coordinator, Steve Speicher, IBM

Minutes

1. New Steering Committee Member Introduction [discussion: 20m]

  1. Mark
    • in the past companies like Boeing were willing to spend more on customization and special integrations and vendors were less inclined to work
    • at the September meeting of the OMG Embedded Systems SIG will have a whole day on OSLC
    • leading an effort within Boeing to use OSLC as the basis for integration for their systems and software engineering environments
      • are speaking to their vendors about this quite heavily
      • Rainer: is it possible for you to share a list of the vendors that you’re approaching? We’re also focusing on recruiting at the StC level.
        • let me double check, but it could be possible
    • Mik: in terms of the integrations you’re looking at in terms of requirements and modeling, is the integration problem mostly on the lifecycle side or between modeling tools
      • Mark: it is mostly in the integrations between different tools in different stages of the lifecycle
  2. others
    • Dave: integration around model-driven engineering resonated very well with me, this is important to us too
    • Rainer: warm welcome
    • Andreas: data interoperability is a focus for our tools research efforts, very happy to have another large end user company involved, especially since you’re in the same industry as us
    • Mik: open standards are key for us, we’re happy that you’ve joined us on the StC
    • Sky: getting OSLC as an open standard in the systems engineering space … quite interested in the OMG meeting

2. OSLC Core progress [review|discussion: 15m]

  1. Steve Speicher, OSLC Core WG lead
    • Core 3 is making improvements on Core 2, but also re-basing on W3C Linked Data Platform (LDP) 1.0
    • LPD 1.0 is in “Last Call” … this means the 48 members of the WG are satisfied with the draft and are giving the community one last chance to comment
      • so far, the comments are minimal … F2F Sept 12-13 to work through issues planned
    • in a nutshell: Core 3 is about simplification and standardization (no new big features, though there are some new capabilities)
    • wrt creating the OSLC Core TC at OASIS, we have drafted a charter, and plan to submit it by the end of August
      • Rainer: can we still be a supporter without being able to join?
        • Steve: we’ll look into that
    • Overall progress of Core: Yellow … at little bit behind on some of the main topics
      • Still expect that the OSLC Core 3 spec will be in shape to contribute to OASIS by Nov

3. Update on OSLC Member Interest Survey [review|discussion: 15m]

  • Sean covered the topics above, also going into some more details on the ideas being worked on to help “make it easier for developers to find the resources to help them implement OSLC-based integrations quickly”
    • create a “developers” page (perhaps developers.open-services.net or open-services.net/developers) that highlights and exposes the useful resources while keeping where those resources are hosted in the background
      • e.g. while you would still go to eclipse.org/lyo to download the test suite for ChangeMgmt, the resource would simply be described as a “unit test suite to assess the fidelity of an OSLC Change Management provider”
    • the Android and iOS developer websites are good inspiration for this effort
  • with respect to the “anti-Eclipse bias” of non-Java and/or non-Eclipse developers, Mik indicated that this is something he’s seen before through his work on the Eclipse Board
    • suggests putting in big bold letters on the Lyo page that it is not an Eclipse plugin or a Java-specific project
  • similarly, Rainer mentioned that Java is anathema to many embedded systems developers who prefer C and C++
    • suggests that by creating the developer website it may be easier to identify what gaps exist in the OSLC open source offerings
      • based on feedback from the workshop Steve gave in June in Germany, C/C++ libraries and education on web services are two items we may need to add

4. Update on becoming a funded Member Section [review|discussion: 20m]

  • Rainer:
    • many other MSs have a treasurer
    • sending people to conferences requires quite a formal process
    • travel expenses for “… OSLC staff conducting work …”
    • “Fall” is the date given by OASIS … we should have first draft of the spending plan for our September meeting
    • the $15k can be extended by donations
      • do we want to do a campaign for donations
      • would IBM want to donate the money it spends on infrastructure so that the StC could then pay for it?
    • is $15k worth the effort?
      • Sky: it probably makes sense …
      • Rainer: the initial effort will be the biggest item, and we’ll need to devote some time in the meetings to vote on spending proposal
      • Mark: because this isn’t a great deal of money, is there a supposition that any planned event will be in conjunction with another event?
        • Rainer: yes, likely
        • Andreas: perfect question … we should discuss the OSLC Connect event in September
      • Andreas: I do think we need to go ahead, and it is good that we know better about what’s needed

5. Update on the INCOSE liaison effort [review|discussion: 10m]

  • Andreas: have been moving and on vacation …
    • no response from the INCOSE folks … expect to arrange a meeting with them next week
    • still have to speak with Axel Reichwein about Koneksys who is willing to be the liaison focal point for both organizations
  • Rainer: there is an opportunity with ARTEMIS to establish a relationship with them
    • Andreas: suggest we start talking to ARTEMIS so that they can prepare to support a liaison relationship with OSLC (it’ll be a first time for them too)
      • still start with INCOSE as they already have many liaison relationships in place
    • Rainer: if everyone is OK with that, I think it worthwhile to open the discussion on this topic with ARTEMIS
      • Andreas: yes, and lets discuss again in October
      • no objections

6. Other

  • Rainer: other MSs have their minutes on the OASIS website … we should have something there too
    • Sean: will look into
  • Sean: also still have to look into me getting access to the StC mailing list and other tools such as the issue tracker
    • Rainer: perhaps we need to formally instate you as Operations Coordinator at OASIS … maybe a topic to discuss next meeting

Summary

Agreements and Consensus in this meeting

  1. we should continue to pursue becoming a funded Member Section
  2. Rainer to open the topic of a possible liaison relationship with ARTEMIS in September

Action Items from this meeting

  1. Mark: to look into share the vendors they’ve been speaking to about supporting OSLC with the StC
  2. Steve: to investigate whether organizations can be co-submitters of a TC Charter without making a commitment to join
  3. Sean: look to have StC minutes hosted or linked to from the oasis-oslc.org website
  4. Sean: follow up again about getting access to the StC tools on the oasis-oslc.org website for himself as the Operations Coordinator (includes mailing lists and issue tracking system)

Future Agenda Topics from this meeting

  1. Andreas: OSLC Connect 2014: what’s the outlook? (proposed for September)
  2. Rainer: budget proposal to become a funded MS (proposed for September)
  3. Andreas: update on INCOSE liaison progress (proposed for September)
  4. Rainer: review of discussion with ARTEMIS and possible liaison (proposed for October)

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