Hi Ian,
On Thu, 11 Nov 2010 18:47:18 +0100, Ian Hickson <i...@hixie.ch> wrote:
On Thu, 11 Nov 2010, Arthur Barstow wrote:
When WebApps re-chartered last Spring, Web Messaging was added to our
Charter thus there is an expectation we will publish it.
I really don't think that what our charters say sets much of an
expectation. There would be much more concern over them being accurate if
that was the case. :-)
Possibly somewhat true, but we should aim to make it more the case rather
than less...
On the other hand there is certainly concern raised about what that
charter does and doesn't say which implies that people already think it
sets expectations, and there are also concerns raised when those are not
met. So I suspect it isn't quite as irrelevant as you seem to suggest :)
Assuming we get consensus to publish the FPWD, one way to move forward
with the publication would be for me [and Mike Smith if he's available]
to copy the latest ED and only make required changes to the text to pass
Pub Rules e.g. update the Status of the Doc section. Would that be OK?
Honestly I don't really see what value publishing this draft has. Just
doing it because our charter says to do it is just bureaucracy for
bureaucracy's sake. In any case, I do not think we should publish this
draft without first solving these problems:
There are a couple of bits of value.
1. As Maciej already pointed out, the structure of the Patent Policy means
there is value in having the FPWD.
2. There are a lot of people who are only tangentially involved in W3C but
use its specs, and it signals to them that this is still something moving
actively.
3. It motivates (some of) us to fix the problems with the current approach
to publishing.
> I'm also a bit concerned that every time we publish anything on the >
TR/ page, we end up littering the Web with obsolete drafts (since the >
specs are maintained much faster than we publish them). I'd really
> rather just move away from publishing drafts on the TR/ page at all,
> if we could update the patent policy accordingly.
...
These problems are technically easy to solve, only politics would prevent
us from addressing them.
Unfortunately politics are real things, not just some imaginary bogeyman
we use to frighten children away from questioning us.
I'm not really interested in discussing the politics, though.
This, for example, is a political statement (as well as a rational
sentiment).
The problems are pretty obvious to anyone who's involved
in the development of actively-used Web standards;
The problems for people who are developing web-standards are obvious to
those people. Unfortunately there are other problems faced by people
actively using them. Judging from your proposal, they may not be so
obvious to people who are actively developing standards.
For example, when setting requirements that standards be used in an
industry (as opposed to mandating particular products), there is a common
and natural reluctance to simply assume that any changes to the standards
will be benign, or of little impact. (I would also characterise this as
common sense). Before a standard is completed (and in the rapid
development model, usually therefore only of historical interest) it is
important to refer to it in various ways, and some of those will require
the ability to reference something where there is faith that it really is
stable.
IMHO it's just something W3C staff should fix,
there's no need for any discussion really.
While I believe we agree on a lot of what the problem you talk about is,
and probably in large part on the solution, I think it's a little more
complex than you make out, and involves more of the 'stakeholder
community' (yay corporate-speak) with different impacts on different
parts. So I would be (pleasantly) surprised if no discussion is needed.
Either way, I don't see why it should directly hold up publication.
Naturally this discussion takes time away from preparing a draft, but
someone other than you can do that - it isn't very time-consuming or
complicated work.
The question here is whether there is a strong reason not to publish one -
i.e. do you object to the Working Group publishing its work according to
the normal process, or do you just want to point out that there are things
we really need to improve in that process, and that in any event you
currently don't have the time to do the mechanical work for publishing?
cheers
Chaals
--
Charles McCathieNevile Opera Software, Standards Group
je parle français -- hablo español -- jeg lærer norsk
http://my.opera.com/chaals Try Opera: http://www.opera.com
