EPTS: An Event Processing Marketing Society (EPMS)
A number of months ago we posted Some Comments on the EPTS Member Agreement where we concluded, in summary:
“I have quite a few other concerns the with EPTS Member Agreement. Basically, the agreement needs to be written with an eye toward a more flexible, open and inclusive process that puts the future of the EPTS square into the hands of the event processing community, not a small group of well intended folks who represent a small part of the overall event processing community and worldview.”
Opher’s reply was to just dismiss these comments, a bit surprising since I served the CEP/EP community on the EPTS steering committee; worked quite hard as a matter of fact, for a number of years. Opher’s appreciation for the years of work is to just off-handly dismiss my comments.
Then in On faithfull representation and other comments and On Top Down and Bottom Up Opher does the same thing, he simply dismisses my comments, defensively, adding humor, sarcasm and fallacy.
I am sorry Opher has become increasingly defensive. However, the facts obviously support my views and comments. For proof that Opher (and the EPTS) have a “narrow view” of event processing, we need to go no further than look at the companies hand-picked for the EPTS Steering Committee; most startups (or with startup products) in the event processing space, working on common messages to distinguish themselves in a market with much more mature players excluded.
Opher’s claims the his view on event processing is quite general, but the majority of vendors on the EPTS Steering Committee members are selling similar platforms, a very narrow segment of the CEP/EP space. Opher posts in his blog that he agrees that other domains (like sensor fusion) are significant to CEP/EP, but he causually dismisses my advice to create a true, general EPTS, inclusive of the prior-art and science of CEP/EP (before the marketing folks took over).
Opher’s fun-to-read blog counterpoints to my concerns are evolving to a mixture of ad hominums and sarcasm, sometime wrapped in a defensive tone. I think we can do better and we must be more inclusive of the other prior-art. I say we, because I am also a founding member of the EPTS, althought I suspect Opher will banish my name from the membership for trying to diminish the “not invented here” attitude that seems to dominate the EPTS since inception.
The truth of the matter is that the EPTS has a relatively narrow view of event processing, evident by the makeup of the steering committee and the focus of their discussions. It is not a technical society about event processing, per se; it is a marketing society with a narrowly focused membership that discounts most of the prior-art in the event processing space, it is really, an Event Processing Marketing Society (EPMS) for a narrow group of niche players.
The event processing domain is much larger. The art-and-science of event processing is deep and mature, much more mature (and inclusive) than what we see in the EPTS and ETPS steering committee companies.
I think Opher (and the EPTS committee) should take these comments seriously and not discount them with sarcasm and subtle ad hominum replies.
Filed under: CEP News and Events, Complex Event Processing, EPTS, Event Processing Technical Society
