Provenance Data Model: The Exec chair perspective

[Mark Allen]

Dear authors of the Provenance Data Model,

Thank you all for your efforts on the Provenance Data Model.
 
From the long experience of being involved in the IVOA process I’d like to point out that absolute full agreement is usually not possible, and the final product is always a kind of compromise. This is necessary in order to really finish things in a reasonable time and to progress to operational implementations and to get the feedback they will generate. The document Editor, and the Working Group chairs have the important responsibility of deciding when a sufficient level of consensus has been achieved. 

In this case I’m fully confident that the document Editor and the Data Model Working Group chairs have made good judgements. Furthermore, this process for the Provenance Data Model has had additional input and guidance by the TCG chairs, and I understand that the agreements made in Paris have been followed.

I understand that the major items of contention have been dealt with in the agreements in Paris. I urge the whole group to accept that the enormous amount of resources and effort that has been spent on this, has produced a reasonable compromise, and that we move on as recommended by the DM WG chair.

Mark Allen
(Chair of the IVOA)



Mark G. Allen
Director CDS
+33 (0)7 84 07 87 57
mark.allen at astro.unistra.fr
http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/~allen


> On 18 Jul 2019, at 17:03, Laurent Michel <laurent.michel at astro.unistra.fr> wrote:
> 
> Dear DMers,
> 
> I really regret to see such dissensions exposed on the list.
> 
> For one year, the Provenance project has been progressing thanks to fragile hard-won compromises, but today it seams to be near collapsing. It's a great pity as we are now dealing with the last small details.
> 
> A 2 folds issue
> ===============
> 
> 1) THE VO PERSPECTIVE: A huge amount of time has been spent by many people for Provenance (editor, authors, chairs -thanks Mark-, TCG members, VO community and finally the institutions supporting the VO). Meanwhile, we have Meas/Coord/Trans, DatasetMetadata, CubeDM, TimeSeries, SourceDM waiting in the Panama canal (most of the Provenance people are also involved in other WGs). We cannot use all of our resources to polish one standard. I consider as my responsibility to check that the VO manpower is fairly engaged for the DM business and that on-going efforts are not wasted.
> 
> 2) THE PROVENANCE PERSPECTIVE: The Provenance status has been WD for one month, this means that the authors agreed with the text and presented it to the community, ready to receive any input from the DM-WG members.
> We are however in an odd situation where one contributor plays both roles (author and WG contributor); consequently the discussion between authors continues as if we were not in WD review process. This is a fact, this is blocking.
> 
> What to do next
> ===============
> Taking all of this into account and seeing that during the WD stage, the editor, Mathieu Servillat, did his best to incorporate comments in the text and publicly released the change list, that fixes typos and obvious inconsistencies, but respects the integrity of the submitted WD, I thus consider that the standard is ready to go for a second PR round.
> Furthermore, the Standard and Doc says clearly that the text can still be amended during this review.
> If this couldn't occur, then Provenance has to be moved backward to the end of the queue.
> 
> Any comment is welcome.
> 
> Regards
> Laurent
> -- 
> jesuischarlie/Tunis/Paris/Bruxelles/Berlin
> 
> Laurent Michel
> SSC XMM-Newton
> Tél : +33 (0)3 68 85 24 37
> Fax : +33 (0)3 )3 68 85 24 32
> Université de Strasbourg <http://www.unistra.fr>
> Observatoire Astronomique
> 11 Rue de l'Université
> F - 67200 Strasbourg
>