L2/11-099 Source: Unicode Consortium Author: Lisa Moore Date: 03/31/2011 To: Unicode Consortium Full Member Representatives Subject: Unicode Consortium Letter Ballot on the Approval of the Creation of a Localization Data Technical Committee Dear Unicode Corporate Members, Please find below a letter ballot to approve the creation of a Localization Data Technical Committee. Following the text of the ballot is an update on concerns or questions that have been raised and the text of the proposal attached here again. You have 30 days, until April 30, in which to respond. However, we ask that you respond as quickly as possible. Once we can determine a majority (5 votes), the results will be announced. Send your vote, one allotted vote per Full Member company, to me and Michel Suignard, Secretary of the Consortium, using the above subject line. If you wish to engage in any further discussions, please do so on the corp-members@unicode.org email list. Best regards, Lisa Moore Vice President ========================================================= Unicode Consortium Letter Ballot: RESOLVED: Approve the creation of a new Localization Data Technical Committee subject to the Technical Committee Procedures with scope as documented below. Agree [ ] Disagree [ ] Please send a response to this ballot as soon a possible so that the work can get underway in a timely fashion. ========================================================= Update on questions and concerns raised during discussions: We have heard back from a majority of the directors and from full member representatives on the proposal to establish a new Localization Data Technical Committee. There appears to be consistent agreement that enabling improved interchange of localization data that conform to the XLIFF, SRX, and TMX standards is within the scope of the Unicode Consortium's mission and of interest to the membership. Concerns were raised about how such a new project would financially burden the Consortium, the wisdom of actually taking over ownership of the three standards, and a worry about managing relationships with the existing standards bodies. - Financial Concerns: The officers met last week and discussed how the new technical committee might operate and what we could expect as the support needs it would require of the Consortium. Our assumption is that in terms of Consortium financial support, the new Localization Data Technical Committee (LDTC) would operate in a manner similar to CLDR: no meeting support, no travel funding, and minimal support from the Editorial Committee. The Consortium would provide space on the server, and the Editorial Committee would provide a landing page for the LDTC to take over and develop. We would also track the member representatives for those members who wish to participate in the LDTC. This would entail establishing a new web page. Finally, we would need to update our Technical Committee Procedures documentation. It lays out the rules of voting and participation, which would remain the same for the new committee. However, it's current scope is currently written for the Unicode Technical Committee and the Unicode Common Locale Data Repository Technical Committee, and that would need to be expanded. The changes would be minor. Our office director, Magda Danish, would be engaged in following up on membership leads for new members to engage in this effort. I would expect this to take a half a day a week for two or three months as we focus on a membership recruitment campaign. We will checkpoint at our quarterly budget reviews to ensure we are on track with the above assumptions and will report the status to the Board in our quarterly updates. All in all, we see this as a small impact on the Consortium's annual budget and the time of our staff. Once the new technical committee is formally established by the membership, the officers will work with the initial proposers to come up with a list of potential new members to approach to join the Consortium and contribute to the work. This is the upside -- we have a very good opportunity to expand our membership to a totally new area of business. In the worst case, we think new volunteers from existing members will focus on the work, with a small impact to Unicode staff and officers. With any positive results in bringing in some of the major players in this new area, we will have a big expansion in our scope of influence in the localization industry. - Scope of work: As we work to establish the new LDTC, the Unicode officers continue with the scope as documented in the proposal sent to the directors earlier. That is, to establish profiles of use for better interoperability between users of the three standards. It is true that the officers of the LDTC might wish to change that scope in the future due to the demise of LISA. A change in scope would need to be approved by the full members of the Consortium. As of now, the scope that the new technical committee will start with will be as already documented. We are aware that this area is undergoing dynamic change. The GALA Consortium is interested in providing the home base for the former LISA open standards. Once Unicode can declare its areas of interest, it should provide a stabilizing influence - not necessarily for ownership but for what is most important to our existing members (and likely those we want to recruit) - clear descriptions of data that must be shared between systems. - Relationships with current owners of the standards in question: With the sudden and unexpected demise of LISA, there is now great confusion and uncertainty about the future of their standards. If the Unicode Consortium can declare its intent to focus on the interoperability of implementations of SRX and TMX (and XLIFF), that will provide a frame of reference for Unicode interests. As other groups lobby to take on ownership, we will have clearly defined our scope of interest. Over time, a new TC would have to engage in liaison relationships with whoever takes on ownership of SRX and TMX.