On Nov 29, 2007, at 12:23 PM, Patrick O'Keefe wrote:
On Thu, 29 Nov 2007 11:28:02 -0600, Ed Gould
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
...
Also reasonable means (to me) *ANY* SHARE member not just project
type people. We are *NOT* suggesting alter authority (of any kind)
just read for the average user.
...
There is still the issue, taken very seriously by SHARE, and (I
assume)
by IBM, that existance of a submitted requirement is info that
could be used by competitors so is to be treated as confidential.
That (to me) is a reason that is slightly on the paranoid side. If
that were the case (and I am not agreeing that it is) then you
(SHARE) should not let any vendor attend *ANY* SHARE sessions that
pertains to requirements voting's otherwise they can gleam the
information from the (either displayed on a projection screen or
handed out by the project). The reasoning is just plain faulty. It
is similar to calling the number of tanks that are in NATO secret
when you can drive pass them on the autobahn and count them. There
are similar secrets (so called) that are applied daily in the army
that are just plain public information. Besides in todays world
satellite pictures can even cover areas away from the the public
road. So the basis for any claim are suspicious. Now no one is
claiming that such technology would be used to gather requirements,
but the paranoia is a little bit much as SHARE itself has opened the
process to OEM vendors by allowing them to participate in the
requirements voting and discussion. I, myself liked GUIDE as they did
not allow any vendors period, but when SHARE opened the can of worms
they didn't think about the consequences, IMO. If IBM is afraid (and
is using SHARE as its "shill") of letting other people know about the
contents of requirements then someone else (3rd party?) should take
over the process.
When people "register" to a project's requirement process the
coordinator checks for any obvious conflicts of interest and reject
those registrations. IBM accepts this as sufficient vetting.
If you are suggesting that OEM vendors are not allowed to submit
requirements, that is a new one on me as I have seen it done. Now I
didn't say it was accepted by the group but if you are indicating
that no vendors are present during voting then I will disagree as I
have seen it and to be honest I could have cared less as none of the
requirements were all that important (trade secrets). These were
simple requirements that SHARE handles almost daily.
I have seen the case (and was there when it occurred) where IBM got
upset that a vendor was invited to a show and tell of IBM storage
futures. IBM had every right to be mad and withheld a lot of
information (rightfully so, IMO) and it was a wasted trip for me. As
I was hoping to be able to give my management some bang for the buck
for letting me attend.
*ANY* SHARE member can register for a project's requirements
process. Only those that have conflict of interest do not get
approved. This is not restrictive in any unreasonable way. Any
SHARE member can (and is encouraged to) register to any group
he/his has interest in.
The issue is access AFTER the submission. As written above it is semi
foolish to think that this information is somehow secret. It can be
gotten but it only can be done if there is a lot of effort to do so.
I am sure that the information can be gotten to if someone really
wants to spend the time to do so. All you are doing is keeping the
information from the people that could use it. Talk about government
secrecy for no real reason.
I can also tell you about a requirement from a (non-OEM vendor) that
basically asked for IBM to offer a DASD reporting package. This was
continuously rejected by IBM over (5 or 6 meetings). We kept changing
the wording to the point that it was difficult to understand what the
requirement was asking for. We finally gave up. IBM (in about 4
years) bought a OEM vendor and is now offering the package. The only
code (AFAIK) that IBM wrote were copyright notices inside the source.
There may have been small other modifications as far as messages but
that is about all that was changed. Did a vendor "profit" not in
anyway that you or I think of. Could they have, not really as if a
vendor needed to code software to do something like this it would
have taken a few years and it had already been done anyway. So no
vendor profit in this scenario.
Ed
Pat O'Keefe
----------------------------------------------------------------------
For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions,
send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO
Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
