[CESG] CESG review of CCSDS MO M&C Services book

Thu Feb 16 18:16:58 UTC 2017

Mario,

For some reason you persist in trying to convolve the role that the Area Directors and the whole CESG is supposed to play in ensuring the quality of CCSDS documents with that of an Agency Review participant.  I have quoted this section of the CCSDS Organization and Processes, A02.1-Y-4, before, but you seem to keep ignoring it.

2.3.2.4.3 An Area Director is responsible for the work done in his or her WGs, BOFs, and SIGs and is specifically responsible for the following:
d)  ensuring that CCSDS documents are properly categorized and that they embody the content and quality expected of documents of their type;  

There is no part of the CCSDS Processes that requires an AD to only submit inputs as a part of an agency review.  That is something you have made up.  On the contrary, the requirement, as clearly stated, is for ADs, and the CESG as a whole, for "identifying “red flag” items where technical work in a proposed CCSDS document is not of the required quality or nature".  I take this responsibility seriously and try my hardest to carry out the role that has been assigned.  Given that situation, and the effort that is involved, I do not make the choice to also participate in Agency Reviews and to read through every document twice, or three times, I just do not have the time.

You should be aware that the intended flow of Red Book processing is that by the time they get to Agency Review they are mature documents.  It should be the case that following an Agency Review that the only minor changes to the document are made and that the document is then easily prepared for final CESG and CMC review and approval.  If a document goes through major revisions after an Agency Review it is supposed to be sent out for another Agency Review.

6.2.5 Formal Agency Review

a)       if technical issues are identified in the course of a review, those issues must be resolved and the review must be repeated before approval can be sought for a change of document status;  
c)  if substantive changes are made to a document that has completed review without technical comment, the Secretariat shall conduct a final review in which Agencies can approve or reject the document but may not suggest additional changes;  
I must admit to being somewhat puzzled as to why there were so many issues identified in this document that was supposed to have been reviewed by the usual Agency Review process.  I had the feeling that there was a lot of new material and so I asked the Tech Editor to confirm that the document sent for Agency Review Red-3 was, in fact, a minor revision to the one sent to the CESG.  That comparison is attached.  I think that if you take the time to review this comparison that you will find that there were, in fact, many substantive changes made to the document between what was sent to Agency Review Red-3 and what was later sent to the CESG for final review.

Based on this I can only conclude that you, as AD, and the SM&C WG, did not follow the CCSDS Procedures and that this document, because of these substantive changes, should have been sent out for another Agency Review.  I recommend that you and the WG review the inputs Erik and I provided and apply as many of them as seem acceptable before sending the document out for the next Agency Review.

The "Show Stopper" PID that you requested is attached.

Regards, Peter Shames

________________________________________________________

Peter Shames
CCSDS System Engineering Area Director

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, MS 301-490
California Institute of Technology
Pasadena, CA 91109 USA

Telephone: +1 818 354-5740,  Fax: +1 818 393-6871

Internet:  Peter.M.Shames at jpl.nasa.gov
________________________________________________________

We must recognize the strong and undeniable influence that our language exerts on our ways of thinking and, in fact, delimits the abstract space in which we can formulate - give form to - our thoughts.

Niklaus Wirth

From: Mario Merri <Mario.Merri at esa.int>
Date: Thursday, February 16, 2017 at 1:04 AM
To: Peter Shames <peter.m.shames at jpl.nasa.gov>
Cc: Dan Smith <danford.s.smith at nasa.gov>, Erik Barkley <erik.j.barkley at jpl.nasa.gov>, Nestor Peccia <Nestor.Peccia at esa.int>, Sam Cooper <sam at brightascension.com>, CCSDS Secretariat <Secretariat at mailman.ccsds.org>, CCSDS Engineering Steering Group - CESG Exec <cesg at mailman.ccsds.org>
Subject: Re: CESG review of CCSDS MO M&C Services book

Peter,

could you please kindly reply to my note and provide the PIDs?

Thanks

__Mario
----- Forwarded by Mario Merri/esoc/ESA on 16/02/2017 10:03 -----

From:        Mario Merri/esoc/ESA
To:        "Shames, Peter M (312B)" <peter.m.shames at jpl.nasa.gov>
Cc:        "Dan Smith" <danford.s.smith at nasa.gov>, "Barkley, Erik J (3970)" <erik.j.barkley at jpl.nasa.gov>, "Nestor Peccia" <Nestor.Peccia at esa.int>, "Sam Cooper" <sam at brightascension.com>, "Secretariat at mailman.ccsds.org" <Secretariat at mailman.ccsds.org>, cesg at mailman.ccsds.org
Date:        10/02/2017 23:13
Subject:        Re: CESG review of CCSDS MO M&C Services book
________________________________

Dear Peter,

Sam will proceed as you recommended, i.e. Sam will update the document so that you can re-re-review it, but only for the showstopper issues.

As done already at the last CESG in Rome, Brigitte and I would like to voice again our discontent on your approach that repeated also on this CESG poll. What we had agreed in Rome and agreed by the CMC was:

Scope of conditions prior to Publication (including AD/DAD participation in Agency Reviews)
- CESG suggests that  AD/DAD minimize their conditions at time of CESG book publication polls. CESG members have the opportunity to raise technical issues prior / during Agency Review(s)
...
- CESG recommends to raise PIDs (Poll Item Discrepancy) at least for showstopper conditions during polls and identify conditions that are non showstopper as such.

We believe that your 91 points raised at CESG poll for publication and your insistence to have the document re-updated (after the already made update that followed the Agency Review) for your own personal review are not in line with the above agreement. We repeat once more: your detailed comments are very welcome, but they must be channelled through the Agency Review. If this is not done, the already scarce agency resources will be wasted with work duplication and with frustrated WG members.

In order to speed up the work and respect the agreement in Rome, could you please generate asap the PIDs for those points that you consider showstoppers. For those, Sam will provide you with the red-lined version of the document. Please provide the PIDs by eob 14Feb17 (they should have been provided at the closure of the CESG poll). We think that this is an acceptable compromise at this stage. In the future, ideally this should not happen again and your detailed comment must be raised during the agency review period.

Regards,

__Mario

From:        "Shames, Peter M (312B)" <peter.m.shames at jpl.nasa.gov>
To:        "Sam Cooper" <sam at brightascension.com>, "Barkley, Erik J (3970)" <erik.j.barkley at jpl.nasa.gov>
Cc:        "Secretariat at mailman.ccsds.org" <Secretariat at mailman.ccsds.org>, "Mario Merri" <Mario.Merri at esa.int>, "Dan Smith" <danford.s.smith at nasa.gov>, "Nestor Peccia" <Nestor.Peccia at esa.int>
Date:        09/02/2017 22:41
Subject:        Re: CESG review of CCSDS MO M&C Services book
________________________________

Hi Sam,

In my viewer I see your comments stacked on top of mine and have to separate them and view them separately.  I did that for quite a number, so I saw what you had replied.  In some cases your notes said "Accepted" as in this case.  In others there was some other sort of a reply that indicated agreement, or issues.  Some of the conditions asked for new figures or clarifications.  And with all of that there are really a significant number of changes requested for clarifications and re-wording.

If there were just a few issues using the PDF document could be made to work.  But in this case, until I see the document that is the result of all these changes I could not possibly provide approval.  I do not think that trying to do this as an exchange of annotations and notes in the PDF file is going to be a good way to accomplish this, so I suggest resorting to actually editing the document.

Regards, Peter

From: Sam Cooper <sam at brightascension.com>
Date: Thursday, February 9, 2017 at 12:39 AM
To: Peter Shames <peter.m.shames at jpl.nasa.gov>, Erik Barkley <erik.j.barkley at jpl.nasa.gov>
Cc: CCSDS Secretariat <Secretariat at mailman.ccsds.org>, Mario Merri <Mario.Merri at esa.int>, Dan Smith <danford.s.smith at nasa.gov>, Nestor Peccia <Nestor.Peccia at esa.int>
Subject: Re: CESG review of CCSDS MO M&C Services book

Hi Peter,

I would really like to acoid that situation as I would like to have consensus on each point before making the changes, this would be in the hope of avoiding multiple revisions (and update/review cycles).

I think the problem might be the use of PDF as a review medium, although I wonder if the PDF viewer you are using is missing some feature as I do not see what you see:

[cid:image001.png at 01D2883D.CDD6BA70]

As you can see, my comment is located in your comment as a reply. The version of Acrobat that I am using is:
[cid:image002.png at 01D2883D.CDD6BA70]

Shall we try again to use the PDF tools? It should be noted that the version you just sent me has had the replies split, so you would have to go back to the original I sent out before.

Regards,
Sam.

On 09/02/2017 04:42, Shames, Peter M (312B) wrote:
Hi Sam,

In trying to follow what you propose to change using this "my note covers your note" approach I cannot get any kind of clear picture of what the final document is going to look like.  I suggest that you attempt to implement the requested changes (at least those that you agree with) and re-submit the integrated result.  I commit to reviewing that and either concurring, or not, as seems appropriate.

Thanks, Peter

From: Sam Cooper <sam at brightascension.com><mailto:sam at brightascension.com>
Date: Thursday, January 19, 2017 at 1:21 AM
To: Peter Shames <peter.m.shames at jpl.nasa.gov><mailto:peter.m.shames at jpl.nasa.gov>, Erik Barkley <erik.j.barkley at jpl.nasa.gov><mailto:erik.j.barkley at jpl.nasa.gov>
Cc: CCSDS Secretariat <Secretariat at mailman.ccsds.org><mailto:Secretariat at mailman.ccsds.org>, Mario Merri <Mario.Merri at esa.int><mailto:Mario.Merri at esa.int>, Dan Smith <danford.s.smith at nasa.gov><mailto:danford.s.smith at nasa.gov>, Nestor Peccia <Nestor.Peccia at esa.int><mailto:Nestor.Peccia at esa.int>
Subject: CESG review of CCSDS MO M&C Services book

Dear Erik and Peter,

Thank you for taking the time to review the specification and provide your comments. Please find attached the WG response to your comments including the detailed marked up copy from Peter (I have responded in the PDF like you did Peter).

Please could you let us have your response by Friday the 3rd of Feb.

Best regards,
Sam.

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