Minutes of CGM Open Meeting

1. Introduction

The meeting was a regularly scheduled meeting of CGM Open.

2. Attendance

11 people attended the meeting. See attendance list at the end of these minutes.

3. Proceedings

3.1. Business

3.1.1. Minutes of last meeting

The minutes of the Annapolis meeting were as amended. The sentence " OASIS offers to run 1 person from CGM Open for the board of OASIS." In 3.2.2 was removed.

3.1.2. Agenda and Minutes

The proposed agenda was adopted. Dieter Weidenbruck will produce the minutes of this meeting.

3.1.3. Next Meeting

March 11, 1999 at 8:45 am in Newport Beach, CA. Meeting agenda and arrangements to be circulated.

3.1.4. Appreciation

The chairman thanked a number of people for their contribution to CGM Open since the last meeting:
- Alan Hester, Lynne Rosenthal (program for XML Chicago)
- Dorothy Weatherby (contacts to OASIS)
- Dave Cruikshand (editing of WebCGM)
More contributions came from Maryse Da Ponte, Roy Platon, Bob Hopgood and others.

3.1.5. Status of Organization

3.1.5.1. Summary of board activities

- The chairman provided a list with possible activities for CGM Open.
- A two-years draft budget has been prepared.
- CGM Open is ready to submit its application to IRS to become a 501C (non-profit) corporation after board's review

3.1.5.2. Membership

The chairman informed the plenary about the current list of member: 6 sponsor members, 2 contributors, 2 participants. 2 to 3 more companies are preparing to join CGM Open. The secretary encouraged the non-member attendees to join. A discussion of a non-profit membership did not yield a result. CGM Open should be willing to enter into peer memberships (e.g. with W3C).

The following efforts will increase the membership:
- directly approach companies
- Dorothy Weatherby started to work on a justification document
- ACTION: John Gebhardt will hand this over to the marketing group. Alan Hester will prepare slides and PowerPoint backgrounds. This has high priority.

CGM Open's policy is to provide information to members as well as to non-members. However, the circulation of working documents and the participation in ISO processes are restricted to members.

3.1.6. Organizational Matters

3.1.6.1. Change of Bylaws

The proposed change of the bylaws will occur per written consent. In addition, the following change will be proposed:

"(1) The candidate for election by the entire membership shall be an employee or duly appointed representative of a SPONSOR Member of the Corporation, shall be and nominated by the incumbent Board of Directors."

John Gebhardt volunteered to prepare the draft, the secretary will circulate it to the members.

3.1.6.2. Elections

The first election of directors will take place at the meeting in Newport Beach, CA. Candidates need to get two sponsor members to nominate them. A candidate can also indicate to the board that he/she is interested. The board will nominate the third candidate. The secretary will initiate the election process end of January, 1999.

3.1.6.3. W3C membership

CGM Open will not pursue a membership in W3C at this time.

3.1.7. Website

The abbreviation NIST should be spelled out. The usage of CGM images on web pages was discussed. This will happen as soon as WebCGM compatible viewers are available.

The webmaster will request a short company description from sponsors and contributors for the web site. He will also introduce a new PR area where press releases from members will be displayed. Only CGM related PR will be handled on a summary page. From there a link needs to be established to the company's PR page.

The secretary will draft guidelines for members describing how they can use the name and logo of CGM Open on their web site.

3.1.8. ISO SC24

Volunteers are welcome to help in the republication of the CGM standard. John Gebhardt and Dieter Weidenbruck volunteered to generate comments.

3.1.9. WebCGM

The MS Word version of WebCGM was finished in late July. The HTML version will be prepared by Dave Cruikshank and Roy Platon by middle of August. An alliance of 5 W3C members will submit the proposal. Among these will be Inso, Xerox, Boeing and RAL. The copyright issues with W3C have been sorted out. No significant negative comment has been noticed so far.

3.1.10. SVG

The chairman gave a report of the first SVG (scalable vector graphics) meeting. The group is forming itself. Apparently Adobe is one of the driving forces. The target is high-quality drawings. Most likely SVG will be more complex and richer than PostScript and PDF. Results are to be expected around summer 1999. Microsoft supports VML for the next release of MS Office because it is too late for SVG.

3.1.11. OASIS

The chairman gave a brief overview of the OASIS summer workshop. At present the relationship with OASIS is being discussed in the Board of Directors of CGM Open. The members agreed to continue to look at the merger and discuss technical synergies, organizational details and the financial side.

3.1.12. CGM Open Activities

3.1.12.1. OASIS collaboration

A technical program draft outlines 5 possible areas of collaboration with OASIS. This document can be found on the CGM Open website.

3.1.12.2. XML Chicago

CGM Open has organized a full graphics track for this premier conference regarding XML. This will bring into this conference new people interested in graphics. OASIS was instrumental in making this happen. There will be a web graphics round table, a tutorial session and case studies.

3.1.13. Program discussion

CGM Open will pursue the following strategies to reach its goals outlined in the charter:
- increase user satisfaction
- increase user base
- increase communication and relationships with other strategic IT communities

A further goal is to strengthen CGM Open as an organization. These strategies were unanimously approved by the attending members.

3.1.14. Business plan

The marketing committee plus John Gebhardt and Dieter Weidenbruck will prepare a draft business plan and circulate to the board.

4. Action Items

5. Attendance List

6. Appreciation

Thanks to ATA for helping with the room reservation.