Project UDI
Policies and Procedures
The purpose of the Project UDI working group is to define and promote a Uniform Driver Interface specification, which would allow device drivers written to this specification to be supported, without change, by diverse operating system and platform vendors.
Participation in the specification process includes a number of OS vendors and IHVs, and is open to new participants at any time.
The specifications produced by Project UDI are intended to be publicly available for implementation by anyone, whether or not they are participants in the working group. While copyright ownership in the specification materials is retained by the major contributors, participants agree to allow these materials to be distributed freely by Project UDI.
Only the final, approved specification(s) represent the formal UDI interface. Only systems and drivers conforming to these finalized specifications may be advertised as UDI conformant.
The officers of the working group shall consist of a chair, a secretary, an editor, a vice chair and, optionally, up to 3 advisors. The officers are elected by a majority vote of eligible voters (see below). No more than two officers may be affiliated with the same company.
There is no fixed term of office. Any voting participant may at any time call for an elecetion vote for one or all offices. This must be ratified by a two thirds majority of eligible voters. The election must then be held within 8 weeks but no sooner than 4 weeks, with notification to all voting participants at least 3 weeks in advance. (See below for the definition of voting participant.)
A call for election may propose to increase or decrease the current number of advisor offices, up to the maximum of 3 advisors. However, any proposal to decrease the number of advisor offices must additionally be ratified by a majority of the current officers.
The chair's role is to run each meeting and generally advance the state of the document, and to ensure that the group is attempting to advance towards its goal.
The secretary's role is to keep meeting minutes, including the roster of attendance and the status of proposals, votes, and action items. The secretary also keeps track of other general business of the group.
The editor's role is to maintain the official "current" and "working" versions of all UDI documents. The role of editor is pivotal and requires a large committment of time and effort.
The role of vice chair is administrative. The vice chair arranges meetings and assists the other officers in performing their duties.
The advisor(s)' roles are to serve as alternate officers and to help maintain the direction and vision of Project UDI.
Participation is open to all interested parties, regardless of company affiliation. Voting status is gained by attending three meetings within a three month period (a new participant can vote at the third meeting). Attendance may be by phone or in person. A voting participant must attend no less than one of every three scheduled meetings in order to maintain voting status. The intention is to maintain the level of participation so that voting participants are up to speed on the issues. Meeting attendees who are not voting participants are welcome to participate in all discussions and to vote in non-binding advisory votes ("straw polls").
Regularly scheduled meetings shall be held to discuss working group business and hold votes, with at least 3 working days notice given to all voting participants. Other meetings may be held at other times, but no binding votes may be taken at those other meetings unless notice of the meeting was given to all voting participants at least 2 weeks in advance. Meetings at which binding votes may be taken must be called by an officer of the group and must provide for remote access by telephone for any voting participant that chooses to participate. Participation by phone shall constitute attendance at the meeting.
A quorum shall consist of a number of voting participants equal to at least 50% of the total number of voting participants. A quorum shall be required at any meeting in which changes to UDI documents (i.e. the UDI specification and any other documents that the working group may undertake to develop) are approved, or working group procedures are changed.
All voting participants in attendance are eligible voters except that at any given meeting, at most 33% of the eligible voters may be from any one company. In the event that more than 33% of the voting participants in attendance at a meeting are from one company, the voting participants from that company shall designate which subset are eligible voters for that meeting. If the application of this rule results in lack of a quorum, then a quorum shall not exist at that meeting.
A 60% majority of non-abstaining eligible voters, but no fewer than 4 votes, shall be required to pass any proposal that results in changes to the document. If a proposal gets at least 50% but less than 60% of the non-abstaining vote, an additional vote shall be taken to determine the disposition of the proposal. The choices in that second vote are either to remove the proposal from further consideration or to reconsider the proposal at the next meeting at which a quorum is present. A 50% vote of all eligible voters (no abstentions permitted) shall be required in order to remand the proposal for reconsideration. A remanded proposal that fails to achieve a 60% majority of non-abstaining voters when it is reconsidered shall be removed from further consideration. The author or authors of a remanded proposal shall be permitted to propose amendments between the initial vote and the reconsideration.
A two thirds majority of eligible voters shall be required to change working group policies and procedures, and to call for an election.
Any vote, except an election call, may be vetoed within a period of 15 days from notification of such vote results, by a majority of the officers, if they deem it to be contrary to the charter and direction of Project UDI.
All changes to the document shall be the result of approved proposals. In order for a proposal to be considered at a meeting, that proposal shall be distributed to all voting participants at least one week prior to a scheduled meeting. Any proposals submitted later, including proposals submitted at a meeting, may be considered, but any voting participant (even if not an eligible voter for that meeting) may veto the consideration of any such proposal at any time, in which case the proposal is considered at the next scheduled meeting. The secretary shall distribute any proposals that were submitted at a meeting to all voting participants as soon as possible after the meeting, in order that they may have at least one week to review the proposal.
Proposals may be submitted by any voting participant. Proposals shall include a detailed description of the exact document changes that are being proposed, along with a discussion of the problem that the proposal intends to solve and a discussion of alternatives with pros and cons.
The secretary shall archive, distribute, and track the disposition of all proposals.
At any time, the working group may elect to form subcommittees to work on various proposals or other business of the working group. The subcommittee may in some cases consist of all of the working group participants.
Subcommittees, which meet under informal rules, make recommendations to the working group and have no authority to make binding decisions or changes to either the documents or procedures of the working group.