RE: [vhdl-200x] 1076 & Entity balloting

I also am initially against changing the PAR to obtain entity
membership.

Could someone articulate the advantages of becoming entity based?

My understanding is that no benefits are gained: that all of the staff
resources of the IEEE available to working groups organized under
entity status are also available to any working group - we just need
to ask.

My understanding further is that switching to entity status will
require each current and future member of this committee to get his or
her entity to support them in their work here.

Further, each voter must then obtain some positive affirmation from
the entity the voter represents as to the entity's position on the
issue at hand; or alternatively the voter must obtain a general
affirmation from the entity, granting the voter wide latitude to cast
votes on behalf of the entity on any issue that might arise in the
domain of the working group.

Small companies and individuals, who can pay the fee to join, will
find the above to be no barrier. Large EDA companies who derive the
majority of their revenue from this standard, will also learn to
overcome this obstacle.

Hnece as a practical matter, this change will make it very
problematical for employees of large corporations (Motorola, Sun,
Intel) to participate in working groups, as likely those who are
knowledgeable on our subject matter will not be able to get their
employeer to give them a general writ; and further it will not be
possible to get timely writs on each individual issue as it comes up
in the working group --

"Motion to adjoun, all in Favor?"

"Hang on, I have to contact an officer of my company to see what our
opinion is on this matter..."

Hence we will loose the participation we have from knowledgeable
users.

I do not believe this is what we are looking for here - it seems to be
a non goal to eliminate the voices of the people who have to use this
stuff from the committee deciding the standard.

In 1364 there was a real benefit in becoming entity based - we would
fulfill one of Accellera's requirements for donation of SystemVerilog.

In the end they decided not to donate to 1364 without regard to
whether we were entity based on individual based.

Is there a dontaion we are looking for that requires entity basis?

-mac

-- On Jun 21 2004 at 00:38, Jim Lewis sent a message:
> To: vhdl-200x@eda.org
> Subject: "[vhdl-200x] 1076 & Entity balloting"
> Steve and Peter,
> At the March 2004 meeting we discussed entity
> and individual balloting and we tenatively decided
> that individual balloting was what we wanted.
>
> I am not convinced that having corporate membership
> in IEEE SA is a way to get more funds. At the
> DASC SC meeting IEEE SA representatives made it
> very clear that neither IEEE SA individual nor
> IEEE corporate dues were contributed to working
> groups. Why would a company want to spend $1000
> or more in a corporate membership for IEEE SA
> just to be able to donate money to our working
> group?
>
> It sounds like what IEEE SA wants is for us to have
> is a separate consortium that funds our efforts.
> A separate consortium that supports VHDL would
> offer similar corporate recognition provided by
> IEEE SA without the additional overhead of IEEE SA.
> For packages trial standards could be formed by
> having consortium standards that would lead to
> IEEE standards. Since they would be consortium
> standards first, I think we also avoid some of the
> copyritht issues with packages. If not, packages
> could be standardized only by the consortium.
>
> I stand firmly against Entity type organization
> unless individual balloting can be done with
> just an individual membership. My current understanding
> is that to ballot (in IEEE SA), one must have a
> IEEE SA corporate membership which is a minimum
> of $1000.
>
> Entity balloting is an appropriate mechanism to use
> when all companies participating have a direct
> financial benefit from a standard. For EDA vendors
> this is clearly true. For users, this is harder to
> demonstrate.
>
> I have worked hard to encourage user participation
> in the VHDL standards process. Excluding users in
> balloting and WG voting membership would destroy
> everything I have been working toward.
>
> When you consider Peter's motion for changes to the
> par, please vote item 11 separately from ietm 13.
> My preference is for individual membership.
>
>
> Cheers,
> Jim
>
> P.S.
> Organizing as entity membership would invalidate
> our current officers as each would be required to
> be a voting member of the working group and with
> entity membership there is only one member per
> company.
Received on Mon Jun 21 17:37:50 2004