A project like SABLE gets its strenght from the people involved in it. We invite you to participate as much or as little as you can. Your input is important !!!

There are many non exclusive ways of getting involved in SABLE. Regardless the one you choose, we suggest you subscribe to the mailing list.

There are basically 4 level of participation in SABLE:

• Observer
  • In that role you are not committing any resources (money and/or time) to the project, but participate as much as you can.
• Active Partner
  • In that role you are committing resources (money and/or time) to the project and you are expected to deliver what you have committed for.
• Reviewer
  • The role of a reviewer is to bring a business oriented view by reviewing the public deliverables and to advise on strategic orientation of the project. This role is voluntary and not funded by SABLE so we don't expect reviewer to particpate actively to all the discussions. It is also a "special" role compared to a traditional observer because a reviewer might influence the project at some point. The group of reviewer has been setup at the beginning of the project and is now close.
• Technical Committee
  • A member of the technical committee brings his technical expertise to the project and has the vote power for all decisions (technical or not) taken during the project. The technical Committee has been setup at the beginning of the project and is now close.

Here is a non exhaustive list of items where we need your help.

 Participate to the debates

Here you are free to choose the subject of discussion you want to talk about in relation to SABLE. You send your questions to the mailing list, you argue for different alternative solutions, if you can, you answer questions from others.

This doesn't require any commitment from your side and therefore you are considered as "Observer" in the project.

 Review the specifications

In this role, you read the on-line specifications, you propose changes (using the SABLE Issue tracking system), you approve or not the specifications and your contribution is logged in the document you have reviewed.

Regardless of your level of participation in SABLE (Observer, Reviewer or Active Partner) you are free at any time to raise issues concerning the online specifications.

A very productive and active review can be considered as a commitment and therefore can promote you to be an "Active Partner" if you were not one already.

 Participate in writing the specifications

Specifications are the heart of the SABLE project. If you are interested in writting the specifications you need to respect the following:

• All specifications are written in HTML (take a look at the current ones to have an example)
• All specifications are not uploaded to the web server directly but to the CVS server and linked from one document at server. Always the last version is shown at the web site. To know how to access to the cvs server you need to contact the Project Manager of SABLE.
• Register to the SABLE Issue tracking system.

Writting specifications needs a commitment from your side that defines the amount of resources you are ready to put in the project, therefore when you write specifications you are considered as an "Active Partner" (please contact the Project Manager to proceed).

 Expose the SABLE APIs from your Product Model Server

If you are a Product Model Server provider (IFC or not) you might be interested to harmonize your development with the SABLE initiative. If you are and do so, please let us know so that we can add your product to the list of Product Model Server compatible with SABLE. The only thing you need to do is to expose one or several of the SABLE SOAP APIs from you server(s).

You might also be interested (for marketing purpose) to tell the community that you have committed to implement SABLE API. In that case you need to commit resources allocated to the project for this purpose and you will therefore become an "Active Partner" (please contact the Project Manager to proceed).

By exposing the SABLE APIs from your server you are also entitled to participate in setting up and performing SABLE demonstrations.

 Connect your software application

If you are an end user software application provider and want to connect your product to a Product Model Server or SABLE server exposing the SABLE APIs you are free to do it. Just let us know if you do so, so that we can add your product to the list of software applications being able to connect to SABLE compliant servers.

For marketing purposes you might be interested to tell the community that you have commited to do it. In that case you need to commit resources allocated to the project for this purpose and you will therefore become an "Active Partner" (please contact the Project Manager to proceed).

By connecting your software application to the SABLE APIs you are also entitled to participate in setting up and performing SABLE demonstrations.

 Promote the project

If you are interested in giving a speech, a presentation, writting an article, producing marketing material, etc, about the SABLE project, you are free to do it. Just let us know through the mailing list so that we can add your presentation(s) to the marketing resources of the project, log an event in the "SABLE News", etc ...

If you want to play an official "marketing" role in SABLE, just commit your resources and you will become an "Active Partner" (please contact the Project Manager to proceed).

 Pilot the project

If you are interested in piloting the SABLE project in real usage scenario, you are free to do it. Basically you will need to gather together software applications and product model servers providers supporting the SABLE APIs.

If you want to do so, please let us know through the mailing list so that we can set up a web based workspace for the purpose of the pilot if you need it.

If you setup a SABLE related pilot project you will first need to commit the needed resource to the project and therefore become an "Active Partner" (please contact the Project Manager to proceed).

 Become funding partner of an active partner

If you are willing to participate in SABLE and don't have enough resources to do so, you have the possibility to contact the project manager or one of the active partners to fund his participation in the project. By doing so, you will assure that your requirements and other needs are captured in SABLE.

Some special arrangements are also possible, for instance:

• Providing funding directly to Eurostep (Project and Technical Management and main contributor of the project + SABLE Server development) for the SABLE related work will result in obtaining a license of the servers developped by Eurostep in the context of the SABLE project. The duration of this license will depend on the amount of funding provided.

Funding SABLE related work promote you automatically into an "Active Partner", so if you are already in that situation just make yourself known.

 Become a commercial partner of an active partner

Of course nothing prevents you to have a commercial partnership agreement with one or several of the active partners providing SABLE related technology. For instance, if you are a software application provider and want to provide your application with the power of data sharing environment you might be interested in making a joint sales effort with a SABLE or a Product Model server provider.

In that situation there are no constraints that you need to respect, except your and your partners business rules ;)

Copyright © 2002-2004, BLIS-Project [BLIS Registered Organization].