[Secretariat] Fw: [CESG] BOFs and White Paper vs. Concept Paper vs. White Book

Mon May 20 23:24:59 EDT 2013

I will contribute what I remember from my discussions with Adrian when I was a new guy.

White paper = White book; the two are interchangeable.

A white book is a draft recommendation (standard or practice).

A concept paper is what a BOF does in order to prove why it needs to become a working group.

A BOF is not supposed to do "real" work before it is approved as a WG at which time it is allowed to commence working on a white book.  Therefore the concept paper should be something interesting, but following the rule above, it should not be a draft white book.  However, in practice this is difficult...  a concept paper will often look like a draft white book.  Therefore it is hard to enforce the rule that a BOF should not produce a white book.

Personally, I think that requiring a concept paper to *not* look like a draft white book is not only unenforceable, it is not always the most efficient approach.  In some cases it may be best to let the concept paper look like a draft white book, if that is what is needed to communicate to the CMC what the scope of the proposed work is.  I think we can let the BOF (or the CESG?) decide.  In any case I would recommend not having a hard and fast rule splitting definitions of a concept paper from a white book.  But that is a CESG decision to make.

   -=- Mike

Mike Kearney
Lead Technology Manager
Mission Operations Laboratory
NASA MSFC EO-01
+1-256-544-2029

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From: secretariat-bounces at mailman.ccsds.org [mailto:secretariat-bounces at mailman.ccsds.org] On Behalf Of Gian.Paolo.Calzolari at esa.int
Sent: Friday, May 17, 2013 3:32 AM
To: CESG -- CCSDS-Engineering Steering Group
Subject: [Secretariat] Fw: [CESG] BOFs and White Paper vs. Concept Paper vs. White Book

Nestor,
        I got no comment on this subject and, as I think we should not loose the occasion to improve the procedure while Tom is working in this book, I kindly ask you to include this in the agenda for the CESG Webex Meeting on 1st July?

Regards

Gian Paolo

----- Forwarded by Gian Paolo Calzolari/esoc/ESA on 17/05/2013 10:24 -----
From:

Gian.Paolo.Calzolari at esa.int

To:

"CESG -- CCSDS-Engineering Steering Group" <cesg at mailman.ccsds.org>

Date:

30/04/2013 17:10

Subject:

[CESG] BOFs and White Paper vs. Concept Paper vs. White Book

Sent by:

cesg-bounces at mailman.ccsds.org

________________________________

Dear All,
       please find here attached some considerations about BOFs and White Paper vs. Concept Paper  vs. White Book.
I generated these considerations taking into account that "originally" (i.e. just after CCSDS restructuring) there were no CWE Projects to take into account; i.e. the Charter were self contained with respect to the complete work to be done by the WG. I have the impression that this new situation is not fully reflected in CCSDS A02.1-Y-3 yet.

Here below some text from CCSDS A02.1-Y-3 about BOFs activities together with some comments from me.

1) The charter states the scope of discussion for the WG , as well as its goals and deliverable products.>
[GPC] OK this is one of the documents to be produced by a BOF for eventual CESG + CMC Approval with the remark that CESG does not focus on resources.

2) Figure 6-1: CCSDS Document Taxonomy
[GPC] This figure requires a Concept Paper to start a Green Book (and not a White Paper). A White Book is  a "CCSDS Proposed Draft Recommended Standard"; i.e. draft blue before becoming red. ===> Concept paper and White Book below to the document life cycle with the Concept Paper being the document needed to start a CWE Project (i.e. to accompany the poll for the creation of a CWE Project). This is also assuming the 1 to 1 correspondence between books and projects.

3) The work of the BOF is to articulate the technical concept, usually in the form of a brief white paper, draft a charter for the proposed WG , appoint someone who is able to be chair, and demonstrate that resources can be secured to do the work.
[GPC] Reading this text it may look that a White Paper paper supports  a Charter while a Concept paper supports a (project to write a) Book
Would everybody agree?
In general I have the impression there is an hole in the real procedures due to the fact that  "originally" everything was done creating a WG and then the WG was going to create (internal, not CWE) projects.
Now the approach we have taken is that CESG/CMC approve creating a WG together with the (first) project(s) in order to evaluate also resources; e.g. look at Telerobotic just as last case.
Taking into account all I have said above, a BOF should provide a final package made of 4 items
a) Draft charter for approval
b) White paper supporting the draft charter
c) One Draft CWE project for each proposed book
d) One Concept paper for each proposed book supporting the related  draft CWE project
  REMARKS:
       Actually c and d could be included as Annexes to the White paper.
       Moreover c should be limited to the books for which the work will start at WG Creation or shortly after to avoid approving projects planned to start 3 or 4 years after WG creation).
       Then d could keep the 1:1 relationship with c or (optionally) include also concept papers for future books (if available).

Would everybody agree?
In general, the difference between white paper and concept paper looks fuzzy in the current book..

Am I the only one puzzled about this?
Would you share the need of some (little) editing to CCSDS A02.1-Y-3 in order to make all this clearer (and specially BOF output for CESG/CMC polls)?

Best regards

Gippo

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