SUO: FW: Results of Appeal
All,
Per the below results of the appeal, the SUMO vote of last August
passed.
Jim Schoening
Chair, SUO WG
-----Original Message-----
From: Johnson, Lowell G [mailto:Lowell.Johnson@UNISYS.com]
Sent: Tuesday, April 09, 2002 4:30 PM
To: 'Schoening, James R CECOM DCSC4I'
Cc: 'Robert Grayson Spillers'; 'j.gorman@ieee.org';
twettach@cohenlaw.com; d.heirman@worldnet.att.net
Subject: FW: Results of Appeal
Jim,
Here is the result of your appeal, as reported to me by the chair of the
appeal committee, Gary Robinson.
If there are any further questions or actions needed, please contact me at
L.Johnson@computer.org <mailto:L.Johnson@computer.org> or 651-635-7305.
Thank-you.
Lowell Johnson, SAB Chair and CS VP Standards
PS; I am back at work starting today, although not 100% yet.
My thanks to everyone who picked up the pieces and filled in for me.
-----Original Message-----
From: gary s robinson [mailto:robinson_gary@emc.com]
Sent: Tuesday, April 09, 2002 1:49 PM
To: Johnson Lowell G
Cc: f.alberthoward@computer.org; mench@mench.com; robinson_gary@emc.com
Subject: Results of Appeal
The IEEE Computer Society Standards Activity Board Appeal committee of
Fiorenza Albert-Howard, Paul Menchini, and Gary S. Robinson met via
email and after studying the available documents have come to the
following unanimous conclusion:
The motion in question was approved.
Specifically, the motion of August 2001, where the SUO Working Group
conducted a vote on whether to commence work on a starter document,
(named SUMO) passed 17-16, with 9 abstentions.
Our reasoning is as follows:
The key to our decision is the precedence of operating rules as listed
in the IEEE Policies and Procedures and Bylaws of the Sponsor. These
precedence documents start with NY State Law and work their way down to
Roberts Rules of Order, newly revised (RRoO). We searched each one to
see what it says about abstentions and majority. The search says
nothing from the top of the IEEE list to the bottom of the IEEE list
(excluding NY State law and RRoO).
We then examined RRoO, which stipulates that abstentions are not counted
when determining a majority. NY State rules say abstentions count
UNLESS (emphasis ours) defined by a subgroup Policy & Procedures, which
we interpret to be the precedence list that includes RRoO.
Therefore, it is our conclusion that NY State Law allows a Sponsor to
define its own rules (within limits, of course). The IEEE has defined a
precedence of governing law, including RRoO as the default governing set
of rules in the absence of any others. RRoO does define that
abstentions don't count when determining majority, and no other higher
precedence governing set of rules address this issue. Therefore, the
governing law in this instance is RRoO. Casting out the abstentions,
the motion passes 17-16.
Gary S. Robinson
Director Industry Standards
EMC2 Corporation
* 617.300.7242 Cambridge (Primary office)
* 508.249.2610 Hopkinton
* robinson_gary@emc.com