[Sois-tcoa] Re: Status of SOIS?

Wed Jun 15 06:33:16 EDT 2005

Dear Adrian,

I am sure that we all have the same goal in mind - to successfully complete
the work of the SOIS group and to get the CCSDS SOIS standards accepted and
used on international space missions. Further I am sure that your email to
Patrick is intended to offer help to the people working within the SOIS
working groups.

Patrick and Chris have both urged on the work of the SOIS working groups and
have conducted an extensive review of progress. A key issue was the ACTUAL
resources being made available for the SOIS work. I assume that this is what
you email referred when mentioning additional resources. The situation for
the TCONS working group chair was that in 2004 the only funding available
was for attending the two CCSDS meetings. My work only progressed outside of
the meetings because I was prepared to give up a significant amount of
annual leave to take the work of the TCONS group forward. This clearly was
not a sustainable position and Patrick has now managed to secure ESA funding
for my work. This funding was signed off in April 2005 and has made a major
difference to the time that I can spend on the SOIS activities. The TCONS
and OBL team now I believe have the appropriate level of funding needed to
do the work required by CCSDS. It would be rather ironic if you recommended
stopping the work of SOIS once this funding was finally in place.

The TCONS and OBL groups made an exceptional amount of progress in the CCSDS
meeting in Athens, the culmination of learning about and fusing different
viewpoints from different areas of expertise over the past couple of years.
We have at last a consistent architecture that meets, we believe, the
broader needs of SIS and the needs of spacecraft software and hardware
engineers. Currently we are in the process of writing this up in the form of
a white paper for broader review. As I am sure you can understand we want to
make sure that the TCONS/OBL working group agree on this document before we
send it out for any further review. We will then welcome comments and take
into consideration any necessary modification of the TCONS/OBL architecture.
At the same time we are working on the Service Interface Specification Red
Books and expect to have drafts for internal review soon. 

Some points that you could help on are:

1.	Could you please let me know the formal review procedures for CCSDS
documents. We want to have them reviewed by SIS and possibly other groups
that you recommend before sending them out for interagency review. Is this
normal? If not how would you suggest that we proceed? I would very much
welcome an idiot's guide to CCSDS review procedures as everyone that I have
asked seems to have a different perspective.
2.	The CCSDS logos etc have changed and we have had some problems with
the template documents that we have been using in the past. Is there a new
CCSDS white, green and red book template available? If so could you please
let me know where I can get them from?
3.	Could you please arrange a joint SOIS / SIS meeting for the next
CCSDS meeting so that we can present our architecture and the work done. I
would be happy to present this to a wider CCSDS audience I you felt that it
would be useful.

I can assure you that the TCONS and OBL teams are fully committed to
completing their SOIS work as soon as possible. Most importantly we are
committed to making sure that the recommendations that we produce are worthy
of CCSDS and will be used by future space missions.

Regards

Steve

------------------------------------------

Steve Parkes

Space Technology Centre

Applied Computing, University of Dundee

Dundee, DD1 4HN, Scotland, UK

Tel: +44 1382 345194

Fax: +44 1382 348838

Mobile: +44 784 138 3779

  _____  

From: sois-tcoa-bounces at mailman.ccsds.org
[mailto:sois-tcoa-bounces at mailman.ccsds.org] On Behalf Of Adrian J. Hooke
Sent: 14 June 2005 18:31
To: Patrick.Plancke at esa.int
Cc: Adrian J. Hooke; sois-tcoa at mailman.ccsds.org; CCSDS Engineering Steering
Group - All; sois-tcons at mailman.ccsds.org
Subject: [Sois-tcoa] Re: Status of SOIS?

At 09:56 AM 6/14/2005, Patrick.Plancke at esa.int wrote:

I forgot that we do not use the same metrics.

Patrick: the metrics of the CCSDS are those that are visible to its primary
customers. The CCSDS.org website is the primary portal by which the outside
world measures our progress and products. If your work isn't visible via
ccsds.org, you may as well not exist.

About SOIS mailing list, the lists who are the more currently used by
working people  are the TCONS and TCOAS (the SOIS main list includes too
many observers that do not contribute but only listen).

The whole point of a mailing list is to communicate, even to observers. Not
using a public list implies that nothing is going on. So what if people
don't contribute? They can always unsubscribe if they get bored or
overloaded by the traffic. But in case of doubt, *communicate*.

For the CWE, did you look to the private documents, for example in TCONS
you have documents uploaded 13 and 14 June or the Wireless BOF ?

The private areas are only accessible to people who have CWE log-in
authority. As material becomes ready to expose to public scrutiny it should
always be moved over to the public folder. How else can the outside world
possibly see what's going on? In the last few months I have had multiple
people ask what is happening in SOIS, and I've been embarrassed to find that
there is NOTHING on public view. It appears as if the whole Area is simply
doing nothing.

A standards organization should, if nothing else, be open. Documents should
only be hidden from public view in their earliest stages. Once you get to a
White Book stage, mark the document prominently as a draft and move it to
the WG's Public folder. That way you let a lot of outside people see what is
going on and, occasionally, you may get a really insightful comment from
someone who is not intimately involved with the development.

Go take a look at http://www.dtnrg.org <http://www.dtnrg.org/>  . If those
guys can develop complex specifications in public, why can't SOIS?

Anyway , we acknowledge the message.  Can TCOAS upload the red books ready
for reviews on the CWE ?

Of course. Why haven't the White Books been in the Public CWE folders for
months?

///adrian

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