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Scherlis@c.cs.cmu.edu/su
Mathis

Bill, this message contains a synopsis of why I think Mathis cannot
remain as chairman of X3J13. None of the reasons by themselves is
compelling, but together I think they might be.

1. There is a question about his global role and his motives
for doing what he does. It appears he earns his living being a
convenor. Therefore, he is possibly more interested in furthering
his career than doing the right thing by the language communities
he represents.

2. There is a question about his local role. The only theory I have
for his support of the Digital Press motion in the face of almost
total disfavor by the community is that Squires probably asked him to
try to wrestle the copyright away from Digital Press. Some people
might believe he is DARPA's dupe.

3. There is some question about his agenda. Why did he postpone discussion
of the scope of the committee until there was less than 40 minutes
left in the meeting and when he result of that discussion was to
be a letter to ISO? Did he want to set the scope? He avoided this
discussion by letting the Digital Press discussion go on for 45 minutes.

4. There is a question about his ability to act in the international
community, especially the Lisp community. 

	a) In Boston last December, he discussed how the French have always
	   screwed things up when they head standards committees.  One
	   Frenchman and 2 British were in the audience. They were not
	   amused.

	b) He has mostly pissed off the American Lisp community with
	   his behavior. Can he be doing less in the international
	   scene? He is seen as representing the US; therefore, the
	   US is probably pissing off the European Lisp community.

	c) He has an agenda of messages and letters he sends to ISO etc.
	   He tries to bully us into agreeing to his ideas on the topic,
	   and so those messages do not represent the US position. Do messages
	   he brings us represent the European position?

5. There is a question of his ability to run a fair meeting. 

	a) He interjects his opinion between speakers; he changes the topic
	   during his interjections.  He calls on his friends out of order
	   (such as Squires, Scherlis, and Gabriel).

	b) He refuses to hear motions. He knows Robert's rules and uses them
	   or not to his own purpose - he did not let the motion to drop the
	   Digital Press motion be heard and said he was ignoring protocol to
	   do that. He finally put Hewitt and some random in charge of
	   drafting the letter to be considered for delivery to Digital Press.

	c) He listens to commentary and summarizes the comments in such a way
	   that shows that he either did not understand what was said or had
	   decided beforehand `the position of the committee' on that topic.
	   This can be seen by recalling how often after his summary hands
	   shot into the air.

	d) Kent Pitman felt compelled to state that even Gabriel ran better
	   meetings than Mathis.

6. There is a question about him understanding the dynamics of the Lisp
community.  Although one can argue that X3 means that every random on
earth is equal to all others, there is a sense in which the leaders of
the community will lead the randoms, and courting the right people *at
the right time* is crucial. I've not seen this ability demonstrated.

7. He does not know anything about the technology. He cannot judge when
discussion is lengthy because there is a deep issue at hand as contrasted
with when it is lengthy because of infinite nitpicking. The discussions
under his control, then, will seem random and pointless to many, causing
discouragement - this has happened already.

8. A number of people are alarmed enough to have come to me to see whether
there is a remedy. These are Kent Pitman, Alan Wexler, Mark Wegman, and
Will Clinger. Dave Matthews, Gregor Kiczales, and Gary Brown expressed
concern. (The first group asked for a plan of remedy; the second group
groaned about him.)

9. Mathis probably knows he is in jeopardy and acts on it. Steele noticed
and I am sure that he is very nervous about my role. He knows I know the
entire community; he sees me caucussing with many people, stepping in and
out of the room; he sees my use of humor and sarcasm to bend the committee;
he sees my use of body language. 

He blocked my desire to communicate with the European community when
there was no point in blocking it, when there was only positive possible
effects of it. He asserted that only he knew the correct people with
whom to meet, and he hinted that only he was in a position to so meet.

He has strengths, though. He knows the ins and outs of the ISO process.
He is free to travel to Europe on a whim and seems to like to do it.
He knows the ins and outs of X3.

I propose that someone else be chairman of X3J13 and that he either be
made vice chairman or international representative (or both). I propose
that the chair be someone in the Lisp community, that his role be one of
a leader with a burning desire to see things through and meeting
helmsman.  I propose Mathis's role be as an administrator and emmissary
to ISO.  That is, Mathis does what he is doing now, but the meeting
leader and nominal head be someone else, with Mathis standing as
executive officer.

I propose that Mathis himself make this suggestion. If not, I am
seriously considering wrestling control from him myself, using people
like Steele, Bobrow, Matthews, Pitman, Fahlman, Weinreb, Brown, Wegman,
and Clinger to plead my case for me.

Bill, you can bring the contents of this message to Squires's attention,
but you may not bring the existence of this message to his attention;
nor may you bring my disgruntlement to his attention any more than
it already has been brought.

The only other theory I have is that he sets himself up as the
target of hatred and distrust to cement the community into a
common bond against him. If so, he is a real pro.

			-rpg-