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

Hi Mac,

I understand your concerns. In its past history, the DASC had a policy of recognizing the votes of non-IEEE members and, internal to DASC, treating them the same as votes by members. The reason for this policy was that many Europeans were not IEEE members but wanted to participate in DASC and DASC WGs.

What Peter has suggested in regards to recognition of individual participation at the sub-group level defines a way that the goals of this obsolete policy can be realized (at least partially) within the scope of today's P&Ps (at all levels).

It is also important to keep in mind that:

1. Once a draft gets to the point of IEEE SA balloting, it is almost assuredly going to pass. In my experience, I have never seen a ballot fail. The most impact from balloting is the resolution of comments that identify some flaw or error in the standard. Of course, these have always been with individual balloting.

With organizational entity balloting, the smaller number of ballots gives greater weight to each one. But, I would anticipate that the process would be similar where the balloters will essentially approve whatever goes to ballot.

The point being that at this stage, it is an all or nothing proposition and individuals and organizational entities will both feel a strong bias towards approval as the overall value of the standard is greater than the alternative. It is also the case that any substantive objections/concerns should have already been raised in the WG and resolved one way or another prior to balloting.

2. The real work happens with a relatively small number of individuals. This is where the greatest influence on the standard occurs. Therefore individual participation and voting at this level retains the majority of the influence that individuals have in the overall process. The addition of organizational entity approval of the sub-group output and guidance in the scope/organization of the sub-groups helps to ensure that the sub-groups generate what the organizations believe is needed in the market.

(It is almost like a bicameral legislature. Using the U.S. Congress as an example the House of Representatives is analogous to the individual members and the Senate is the organizational entity members. Each need to work cooperatively to achieve legislation/standards.)

DASC funding of all WG activities is an interesting consideration. There maybe issues if company XYZ says that they want to make SystemC a reality but care less about SystemVerilog or VHDL. Therefore, why should they be subsidizing the WGs they don't care about? The more direct question is: would such funding soften the "market relevance" aspect by making funding of specific standards less direct than if the WG were responsible.

If that is a minor concern or non-issue, then funding at the DASC level can work.

However, we would quickly get to the question of: Would sponsoring organizations expect the WGs to be organizational entity membership as a condition of the funding. This is the Accellera model and Accellera has been successful in getting corporate funding. Therefore, I would expect that organizational entity membership would be highly desired if not required.

-Steve Bailey

> 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 09:03:42 2004