CGM OPEN ACTIVITY REPORT
DECEMBER 2002

1. Report Details

1.1 Purpose

Summary of phone conference and follow-up discussion regarding CGM Open member product information web pages; Release of prototype web site

1.2 Location, Dates

Phone conference, December 17, 2002
Follow-Up E-Mail exchange, December 17-26, 2002

1.3 CGM Open Attendees

Phone Conference & Follow-Up:

• Lofton Henderson - (Program director)
• Dieter Weidenbrück - ITEDO
• Forrest Carpenter - SDI
• Franck Duluc - Airbus
• Bruce Garner - Lone Pine Water Works
• John Gebhardt - Corel
• Don Larson - Larson Software Technology
• Ulrich Läsche - Ematek

Follow-Up:

• Dave Cruikshank - Boeing (CGM Open CTO)
• Kevin O'Kane - Auto-trol

2. Agenda & Contents

3. Action Items

3.1 Reviewed action items

3.2 New action items

4. Activity Topics

4.1 Pre-Conference Material

Based on the material provided by various members as a result of the assigned action items (see 3.1) ITEDO compiled an updated draft version of the member product web pages. Lofton circulated an updated collection of product pro-formas on 12/13 still missing the editor product pro-forma. He also documented his comments on the draft product web pages and circulated them on 12/16. This document served as an agenda for the phone conference.

4.2 Phone Conference

4.2.1 Integration & Organisation

The goal is to achieve a clean and appealing integration of the new content with the existing CGM Open web site information. In his comments of 12/16 Lofton suggested a change in the current navigation bar layout introducing a new entry "Products" in the "Technical->WebCGM" submenu. Due to design constraints (menu is no separate frame) this was not possible. We thus decided to blank out the "Testimonials" menu entry, to introduce the "Products" entry, and to rearrange/rename the existing topics "Info" as well as "Press Releases." In addition, archaic information, such as "WebFonts" in the "Info" page, should be removed.
Vendors will be given the opportunity to update their product information on a quarterly base. Thus, initial product information should be verified and confirmed prior to a release on the CGM Open web site. Unfortunately, the content verification did not work out as expected resulting in an incomplete prototype web site launch (see 4.4 & 4.5).

4.2.2 Status of Product Pro-Forma Pages

The collection of pro-forma pages as provided by Lofton on 12/13 will go into the initial web site release. The editor pro-forma was still missing by the time of the phone conference. We thus decided to display an "under construction" message for editor products but revised that decision when the pro-forma became available (see 4.3).

4.2.3 Eligibility

All CGM Open members have at least one WebCGM-compliant product and will be listed in one and/or the other product category. If a vendor offers additional CGM-related products (which are not WebCGM-compliant) such products can be referred and pointed to at the bottom of the respective WebCGM-product information web pages. After releasing a specific product information web page a two-month time frame for the completion of the pro-forma page is granted to the respective vendor. In the meantime, the blank pro-forma page will be linked to the product page rather than displaying a "not yet supplied" message.

4.2.4 Legalese / Miscellaneous

We agreed on Lofton's proposal to rename the "Legal Para" to "Disclaimer" and to display a brief version of the full legal paragraph on the top of each product category page. A link to the complete disclaimer version will be put at the end of the brief paragraph. We also agreed upon the minor changes proposed by Lofton in the "Miscellaneous" section of his document of 12/16 (see 4.1). The headline "Classification in Categories" will be changed to "Product Categories."

4.3 Editor Product Pro-Forma Discussion

Subsequent to the phone conference Kevin provided the draft for the editor product pro-forma page and caused a lively e-mail exchange about the testing structure, references to other pro-forma pages and the level of detail in Kevin's draft (see e-mails from Kevin, Lofton, Bruce and Dieter of 12/18). Since some kind of editor pro-forma was considered to be better than having nothing in place at all a number of minor changes (such as explicit links to the existing generator and interpreter pro-forma pages) were implemented and the editor pro-forma was included into the prototype web site.
However, the current status of this pro-forma cannot be considered final. Especially the test-mapping table needs to be more explicit even if this will take significant time.

Action Item: All members need to check the current status of the editor product pro-forma and supply their input. Based on the outcome of the discussion Kevin needs to update the pro-forma.

4.4 Web Pages Content Verification:

To confirm the member product information being correct positive affirmation of the information collected so far was requested within 18 hours after the phone conference. This deadline was mandatory due to season holiday constraints. Three of the six vendor members answered in time (one of those asked to be removed until January). Thus only two vendors could be incorporated into the initial web pages.
Two of the remaining three vendors voted to go live with this limited web site. To not reflect badly on WebCGM (only two vendors with compliant products?) we decided to go ahead but to wait with an official public promotion until January (see 4.5).

Action Item: Don, Kevin, John, Ulrich need to give their OK for the product information collected so far. Dieter asked Forrest for clarification regarding a new product before including it into the web pages.

4.5 Prototype Web Site Release / Next Steps:

Meeting the goal to go live with the CGM Open member product web pages in 2002 Lofton arranged and announced the release of the updated prototype web site (see: http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/cgmopen-members/200212/msg00000.html) containing the changes we discussed during the phone conference.
According to the member product information supplied so far the prototype web pages only list the products of two vendors. Additional work needs to be done during January before we promote it publicly.

Action Item: All members need to check the current web page content and supply their input. The final discussion will take place during a follow-up phone conference in mid-late January. The exact date of this conference still needs to be arranged (Dave).

Acknowledgements

Thanks to David Cruikshank of Boeing, for providing the teleconference facilities.