[Rets-dev] More about schema overrides

Tue May 1 17:53:29 CDT 2007

I've been in the IT field for over 25 years and currently work for Oracle
where I am involved with major IT integration projects (B2B, C2B, A2A, etc.)
on a daily basis - including efforts involving many vertical standards such
as MISMO, OSCRE and ACORD.

Before joining Oracle I worked for seven years as a CIO one of the largest
independent brokers. I have seen my fair share of interesting real estate
software, good, bad, ugly, home grown and COTS. During that time I was able
to work with all the major MLS vendors, Homestore, Microsoft, NAR, CAR, many
MLS organizations and dozens of realtor software vendors. In addition we
designed, built and deployed enterprise level systems (including feeds from
multiple MLS's) across the entire transaction cycle from lead to commission.
Some of what we designed has yet to be duplicated (see the patent for
details). Some of it lives on at Oracle and in Struts.

Because of the powerful reputation our broker had within the sector I have
had the chance to see first hand the actual design of many MLS, TMS and
realtor software systems. I can vouch for the depth, solidity, robustness
and scope of the work done by Paul and Sergio for MRIS. Their efforts
represent some of the most substantial and significant work ever done in
this sector. 

It has been my experience that the RETS community is quite capable of
deciding which voices to listen to. Certain folks have earned respect based
on substantive contributions and collaborations over time across the
spectrum of users, clients, servers, vendors, etc. Attacks on Rets-Dev have
not tended to be the most effective way to gain such respect (or a
constituency) in the past. 

In a standards community it can be problematic when there is strongly held
dissent that does not achieve a majority in public forums and votes. I did
make some suggestions on how to formally incorporate such dissenting
positions in the governance recommendations prepared and presented last
year. It will be the job of the new hand-picked governance workgroup
convened by Mark Lesswing to consider those recommendations or develop
alternate approaches to dissent.

In the meanwhile, it is important to be sure we have fully heard all the
real arguments. Attacks (and defense of attacks) just get in the way of that
process. If there are serious arguments in favor of the dissenting position
that we have not heard, it would be far better to present those than to
attack folks who disagree. 

Steve Verba

-----Original Message-----
From: rets-dev-bounces at rets.org [mailto:rets-dev-bounces at rets.org] On Behalf
Of Paul Stusiak
Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2007 12:54 PM
To: Matt Lavallee
Cc: Rets-dev at rets.org
Subject: Re: [Rets-dev] More about schema overrides

Nice one. Always go for the ad hominem attack when available. As an 
argument style is is very useful. It distracts from a weak argument.

Oddly enough, I have been involved in building several of the largest 
systems that serve MLS, both RETS enabled and pre-RETS, so I like to 
think that I have more than a passing knowledge of how these things go 
together. I am not so full of myself to suppose that I can't learn and 
gain further insight through the contributions of others.

I've been doing this for thirteen years, working on production real 
estate systems. Before that I have another eighteen years of software 
development. The last twenty years have been as my own company. You 
should check your facts before making such comments. As a matter of 
experience, I feel compelled to share that even in those cases where you 
find that you are correct, it is almost always a mistake to make those 
comments.

Should I be calling into question your credentials? Since this is an 
open forum I am not.

I would further point out that there are precisely two people dissenting 
at this point, while the majority are correctly pointing out that we 
need to try to ensure inclusion.

Finally, I would point out that you are completely ignoring the voices 
that were heard from the MLS attendees themselves. There were sixteen 
different MLS in attendance at the last meeting.

Stick to presentation of facts or asking questions.

Paul

Matt Lavallee wrote:
> True enough, Steve.  And, while the dissension has come from members who
> actually have to implement the standard, it occurs to me that the only
defenders
> thusfar have been consultants.
>
> -Matt
>
>   
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: rets-dev-bounces at rets.org [mailto:rets-dev-bounces at rets.org] On
Behalf
>> Of Steve Clarke
>> Sent: Monday, April 30, 2007 11:54 PM
>> To: Jeff Brush; Rets-dev at rets.org
>> Subject: RE: [Rets-dev] More about schema overrides
>>
>> I think we need to do better than to agree to disagree.  This is a
>> fundamental direction of the RETS standards initiative and we need to
>> somehow get this decided.  Maybe we need to get the governance group to
>> show us how to resolve such disagreements.  From my standpoint, there
>> have been some serious issues raised with the notion of strict data
>> validation being tightly coupled with the schema standardization effort.
>> The dissention is coming from a pretty diverse group of people, and the
>> concerns are very similar.  I would not be satisfied if we all agree to
>> disagree and then the standard continues down this path with no
>> resolution for the issues.  I believe there were some reasonable
>> suggestions, not just disagreement.
>>
>> smc
>>     
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Rets-dev mailing list
> Rets-dev at rets.org
> http://lists.rets.org/mailman/listinfo/rets-dev
>
>
>   

-- 
Paul Stusiak
Falcon Technologies Corp.

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