OK, so the only benefit that has emerged so far is a hope that with
entity balloting, it will be easier to raise money to pay for editors
and other staff.
Among the negatives is the disenfranchising of many participants in
this working group.
It is hoped that non voting folks will decide to continue to
participate on an advisory basis.
It is further hoped that the entities that pay-to-play will agree to
give up some of the power they have procured to these same advisors,
by allowing them to vote on non important matters.
As I get older I learn more to distrust naive hopes and verbal
promises. Let us get it in writing - both the checks and the voting
rules - before we reconstitute the PAR.
Further, it is clear that these two hopes are in direct opposition -
If I am a big spender, and condition my contribution on obtaining
control of the vote, then why would I allow non contributors to have a
say?
It is imperative to separate the money from the votes.
Doing this is quite simple - the DASC should set a target to raise
$500,000 per year (or 100k per active working group) and use this
money to fund the editorial and staff needs of all of its working
groups. The DASC can use its resources to pool efforts to get the
IEEE, the EDA companies and the user companies to fund the development
of robust, open standards.
The path being considered here is one that takes us back to
proprietary standards, controlled by just the vendor. There is no
question that this can work - it will just be a less open and less
competative marketplace than the one we have today.
Michael McNamara
(as VASG member)
Received on Wed Jun 23 08:29:54 2004
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