[802SEC] FW: Software and Treasury concerns
+++ FORWARDED ON BEHALF OF HARRY WORSTELL PER HIS REQUEST +++
_____
From: Worstell,Harry R (Harry)
Sent: Saturday, November 04, 2006 3:01 PM
To: STDS-802-SEC@listserv.ieee.org
Cc: paul.nikolich@ATT.NET; k.kenney@ieee.org; wpiencia@thunderdome.ieee.org;
Bob Labelle
Subject: Software and Treasury concerns
Dear IEEE 802 Executive Committee,
I am writing to you as an IEEE 802.11 voting member to object to the
misrepresentation and half truths in the emails sent by Dr Heile and Rick
Alfvin, copied below, in regards to the attendance collection at the
November 2006 Plenary session. Mr. Alfvin has stated in his email "The IEEE
system originally tested for .11 and tested by other wireless groups in
Melbourne. Although this system is currently available at no charge, it
lacks security, authentication and an administrative interface to modify the
database during the session to make corrections. The system also lacks a
feedback mechanism allowing an attendee to monitor his accrued percentage of
attendance. The IEEE openly acknowledges the shortcomings of the interface,
and has stated that this is a throwaway stop gap solution."
The IEEE IT software was and is intended to be a stop-gap solution for the
IEEE 802.11 Working Group as they were, due to the size of the group, unable
to meet the requirements of the IEEE 802 Policies and Procedures without an
automated attendance solution. This system was NOT tested and never intended
to be tested as a solution to the problems with attendance collection for
other 802 groups. The software needs were never offered for bid to any other
venders per IEEE policies by the IEEE EC and yet in his email he states
"*Note: Unless this solution is adopted by 802, it may not be available in
the future......so, if you haven't used it before, this may be your last
chance to try it and form your own opinion of its value to 802.*. No other
vendors have had a chance to offer any other options and no competitive
bidding has been done. To my understanding, every group except for IEEE
802.16 and 20 has used the stated commercial software.
I will reemphesize that the IEEE IT software was and is intended to be a
stop-gap solution for the IEEE 802.11 Working Group as they were, due to the
size of the group, unable to meet the requirements of the IEEE 802 Policies
and Procedures without an automated attendance solution.
The IEEE-SA Electronic Services Group provided this software solution until
the IEEE 802 EC could come to agreement and provide a COMPLETE solution for
the problem, which they have not done yet. The IEEE IT group has also been
working on a complete solution that they will offer the IEEE 802 group for
free or at a minimum expenditure as they have stated. They have also
provided stop-gap back-end processing that I believe was not used by any
other group other than IEEE 802.11. It also is tied to the registration
using the Member ID numbers of the IEEE 802 group. It was never meant to be
secure or final a solution and has been a real asset to the IEEE 802.11
Working Group in our situation and I thank them for their great work. It is
certainly as secure than the paper method we have used for the last 10 years
and it is free!
We have found that the IEEE 802.11 member ID numbers are changing on a
regular basis and the organizers registration software is not catching these
changes which are causing problems with post processing of attendance and
letter ballots. We have had 3 to 10 members with different numbers at every
session. These numbers should never change for any individual.
Dr. Hiele has stated in an email copied below "My expectation that there
will be no 802 groups outside of 11,15,18, 19, 20, 21 and 22 who will
express any interest in using any of the two electronic systems and that we
will have to handle this our of the wireless treasury if we want to take
advantage of the more user friendly Azgaard system." First of all the
treasury is NOT the wireless treasury. It is the Joint Treasury of IEEE
802.11 and IEEE 802.15.
Dr. Heile has also stated in the email below that "Please also signify
whether you will support the expenditure of funds from the wireless treasury
for the Azgaard system ( my guess is it would cost between $600-800 if it
were used by 15, 20, 21 and 22). " Mr. Alfvin states that "The Azgard
system, which is a commercial application, is being offered for use by IEEE
802 during the Dallas session for a minimum fee of $500 or $2/user,
whichever is greater." If the wireless groups all us this software, the
expenditures could far exceed the estimates from Dr. Hiele.
As this is an 802.11/15 joint treasury per IEEE 802 Policies and Procedures,
the members of each group must vote on any expenditure of this kind. The
Chair of the IEEE 802.11 Working Group has already stated in an email copied
below that " Well being forced to be the bad guy here, I am informing you
all the 802.11 WG is fully committed to the IEEE attendance approach as
previously stated, and to that end will be using it in its interim form for
the Dallas session. This decision is until either mandated by the 802 EC or
IEEE and therefore that is the choice that my WG is using for attendance
collection." He also stated that "Finally, under the joint treasury of
802.11 and 802.15 I vote no for the provision of funds for this 802 EC
sponsored November Plenary session in Dallas. Later events are not covered
under my negative vote for this session. ", which means that the IEEE 802.11
group does not support any expenditure of monies out of the Joint IEEE
802.11/15 treasury. Also, this being a Plenary session, it is up to the IEEE
802 EC to fund such expenditures, not the working groups or TAGs.
Finally, I, as an IEEE 802.11 voting member in good standing, object to any
further back-door politics and misinformation to be dispersed by any member
of the Executive Committee and that the 802 Executive Committee follow their
IEEE 802 Polices and Procedures and the IEEE policies now and in the future.
Regards,
Harry Worstell
Attachment:
_____
From: Bob Heile [mailto:bheile@ieee.org]
Sent: Sun 10/29/2006 9:04 PM
To: stuart.kerry@nxp.com; bheile@ieee.org; mjlynch@nortel.com;
shellhammer@ieee.org; a.greenspan@ieee.org; greenspana@bellsouth.net;
vivek.g.gupta@INTEL.COM; wk3c@wk3c.com
Cc: Worstell,Harry R (Harry); john.barr@motorola.com; apetrick@widefi.com;
alfvin@ieee.org
Subject: Fwd: [802SEC] Attendance Collection in Dallas
Gentlemen
Those of you on the EC reflector have already seen Rick's email. My
expectation that there will be no 802 groups outside of 11,15,18, 19, 20, 21
and 22 who will express any interest in using any of the two electronic
systems and that we will have to handle this our of the wireless treasury if
we want to take advantage of the more user friendly Azgaard system.
Per Rick' request please let this group know ASAP if you want to use one or
the other or none. Please also signify whether you will support the
expenditure of funds from the wireless treasury for the Azgaard system ( my
guess is it would cost between $600-800 if it were used by 15, 20, 21 and
22). A majority of us is needed to support this if we are to do it. That
does not mean you have to use it. 15 would very much like to use the
Azgaard system since it is a much more robust system, automatically deals
with deadbeats and requires substanstially less post processing.
Bob
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2006 13:37:17 -0400
Reply-To: Rick Alfvin <alfvin@IEEE.ORG>
From: Rick Alfvin <alfvin@IEEE.ORG>
Subject: [802SEC] Attendance Collection in Dallas
The Dallas IEEE 802 plenary meeting is quickly approaching and we need to
determine what our attendance collection options are for this session. As
vice-chair of 802.15, I am responsible for 802.15 attendance collection. As
far as I am aware, there are three options available to all working groups.
1. Manual methods. Labor intensive and viable for some of the smaller
groups. Generally not a desired or preferred approach.
2. The IEEE system originally tested for .11 and tested by other wireless
groups in Melbourne. Although this system is currently available at no
charge, it lacks security, authentication and an administrative interface to
modify the database during the session to make corrections. The system also
lacks a feedback mechanism allowing an attendee to monitor his accrued
percentage of attendance. The IEEE openly acknowledges the shortcomings of
the interface, and has stated that this is a throwaway stop gap solution.
3. The Azgaard system originally tested by .15 and tested by other wireless
groups in San Diego. This system provides authentication tied to the
registration database (so only paid attendees can log attendance credit),
security in the form of unique user/password restricted access, immediate
user feedback showing the percentage of accrued session attendance credit
and an administrative interface which allows an admin to modify records
during the event (e.g. if an attendee forgot to sign in to a meeting and
needed to have his attendance record corrected.) *Note: Unless this solution
is adopted by 802, it may not be available in the future......so, if you
haven't used it before, this may be your last chance to try it and form your
own opinion of its value to 802.*
If you wish to use the IEEE system, I recommend you contact Walter Pienciak
*wpiencia@thunderdome.ieee.org* <wpiencia@thunderdome.ieee.org>.
If you wish to use the Azgaard system (my preference), please reply to this
email. The Azgard system, which is a commercial application, is being
offered for use by IEEE 802 during the Dallas session for a minimum fee of
$500 or $2/user, whichever is greater. This fee will have to be approved by
either the 802 Wireless Groups Executive Committee or the IEEE SEC. I will
pass along your choice to use this approach to both the 802SEC and
802Wireless SEC.
--
Rick Alfvin
Vice Chair IEEE 802.15
+1 585.781.0952
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This email is sent from the 802 Executive Committee email reflector. This
list is maintained by Listserv.
Bob Heile, Ph.D
Chairman, ZigBee Alliance
Chair, IEEE 802.15 Working Group on Wireless Personal Area Networks
11 Louis Road
Attleboro, MA 02703 USA
Mobile: +1-781-929-4832
email: bheile@ieee.org
_____
From: Stuart Kerry [mailto:stuart.kerry@nxp.com]
Sent: Sun 10/29/2006 11:08 PM
To: alfvin@ieee.org
Cc: apetrick@widefi.com; a.greenspan@ieee.org; bheile@ieee.org;
greenspana@bellsouth.net; Worstell,Harry R (Harry); john.barr@motorola.com;
mjlynch@nortel.com; shellhammer@ieee.org; stuart.kerry@nxp.com;
vivek.g.gupta@INTEL.COM; wk3c@wk3c.com; b.labelle@ieee.org;
p.nikolich@ieee.org
Subject: Re: Fwd: [802SEC] Attendance Collection in Dallas
Rick,
Well being forced to be the bad guy here, I am informing you all the 802.11
WG is fully committed to the IEEE attendance approach as previously stated,
and to that end will be using it in its interim form for the Dallas session.
This decision is until either mandated by the 802 EC or IEEE and therefore
that is the choice that my WG is using for attendance collection.
Finally, under the joint treasury of 802.11 and 802.15 I vote no for the
provision of funds for this 802 EC sponsored November Plenary session in
Dallas. Later events are not covered under my negative vote for this
session.
/ Stuart
_______________________________
Stuart J. Kerry
Chair, IEEE 802.11 WLANs WG
NXP Semiconductors,
1109 McKay Drive, M/S 48A SJ,
San Jose, CA 95131-1706,
United States of America.
+1 (408) 474-7356 - Phone
+1 (408) 474-5343 - Fax
+1 (408) 348-3171 - Cell
eMail: stuart.kerry@nxp.com
_______________________________
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This email is sent from the 802 Executive Committee email reflector. This list is maintained by Listserv.