Committee membership

[Daniel L. Weinreb <DLW@SCRC-QUABBIN.ARPA>]

I agree with Gabriel that Franz, Inc. wants the PR value of having a
Franz person on the committee.  I also agree with all of your comments
about an Industry Advisory Committee, particularly since there would be
no justification for keeping out any of the 100 little companies out
there.  (And I can tell you certain individuals who would end up on such
a committee who I really would not want to have to listen to and answer
to!)  I also think that Fateman would not be satisfied with this,
anyway, since such a committee would still be second-class compared to
the real technical committee itself.  So I don't think the industry
advisory committee is a good idea.

I've said before that I have no objections to Fodorero being on the
technical committee, and I agree with you that one extra person, even if
he's a random, would be preferable to a long fight.

Unfortunately, I also agree with you that if we are seen as giving in to
political pressure from Franz, it is liable to cause some other
companies to try the same thing.  This is the point that I am the most
concerned with.  We discussed putting Fodorero on the committee, knowing
that exactly this kind of thing was reasonably likely to happen, and we
decided against putting him on the committee.  Whether or not this was
the best decision, it was made and the result was announced.  If we had
wanted to avoid a fight from Fateman, we could have done it without the
"precedent" problem by having put Fodorero on the committee in the first
place.  If we put him on retroactively, we run a real risk of inviting
further pressure.  It's going to be clear to the rest of the world what
happened, even if we keep very quiet, and even if they manage to keep
from gloating where other people can hear; it would simply be too
apparent what such an additional appointment to the committee would
mean.

So in my mind, it hinges on whether we expect other companies to demand
admission.  You say that you don't expect it.  However, recall how much
discussion there was, at the Boston meeting, of representation for every
company.

Here's a slightly different way to look at it.  You say you want to
avoid fights, and get on with the real work, and I agree completely.  If
we now announce that Fodorero is on the committee, we will be telling
the world that the committee composition is NOT a decided, finalized
thing, but rather something that is still being modified and is subject
to change.  So instead of real work, we'll be in a "keep deciding who's
on the committee" mode for an indefinite period, with no well-defined
milestone point at which committee membership is decided and real work
can begin.  In a way, I'm afraid that by avoiding this short-term fight,
we'd be letting ourselves in for a much more troublesome longer-term
fight.

I, too, hate to "make enemies for no good reason".  But you can't put
all of the blame for the creation of an "enemy" relationship on us.
After all, we do not seem to have made enemies at Apollo or TI
particularly.  Who is rightfully to blame for setting up a conflict?

So I vote, somewhat reluctantly and with all due respect, for option 2.

-- Dan