On 12/03/2012 01:44 PM, Charles McCathie Nevile wrote:
Just a reminder: this group is a forum for discussion of technical
specifications, and follows the existing W3C process. Discussion of what
process *should* be is off topic here.
I find it unfortunate that you try to cut off discussions relevant to
technical issues with our specifications by calling them "process"
discussions.
From my understanding reasons for the practice include the following:
- W3C aims to provide stable specifications that can be used as
references which won't change. This is a general underpinning of its
policy for specifications published as "TR" documents. Making a
normative reference to an unstable document obviously defeats this purpose.
The argument that "TR" documents are in some way more "stable" than
other documents is simply fallacious. This has been discussed at length
here and in other venues; I won't go into it again.
Furthermore, I should point out that referencing the TR draft of WebIDL
would (if anybody tried to implement the TR spec and its TR references;
nobody does, of course) lead to a specification that is not
implementable. The WebIDL used in XHR is not valid according to the 19
April 2012 CR of WebIDL.
- A couple of years ago, W3C was granted PAS submission status, after
applying for this at the urging of many of its members and of non-member
consumers of its specifications. This relies on lots of things, but one
of them is a certain clarity of process. ISO accepted W3C's process. I
don't know if they would be prepared to accept that of the WHAT-WG. I
don't even know anyone who cares enough to find out. In the meantime, I
suspect this is another reason not to make normative references to the
WHAT-WG's work and in particular to unstable documents.
I do not see how this is relevant; I though the process was clear, and
that it did not censor references to particular organizations.
That's not in the W3C pub rules or a good idea.
It isn't written there, although it has been applied for as long as I
can remember (which stretches back to before "pubrules" was a document).
I would love to hear examples of where such a rule was applied before
the W3C started co-publishing WHATWG specifications; in particular,
cases where the W3C publication was significantly out-of-date in
comparison to the alternative.
To the extent W3C thinks this should apply, they should indeed write it
in there, since it has recently become contentious.
As long as the rule doesn't exist, one can hardly expect editors to
comply with it. If we expect editors to simply "do as we did before",
we'd be stuck with DOM2-style specifications; I think we all agree that
would not be good for interoperability.
Pubrules doesn't, as far as I know, prohibit "f-bombs" in specs. W3C
working group members, including editors, are expected to be socially
competent adults, which is a catch-all for what would otherwise be an
endless set of statements like "people who know not to use the 'f word'
in a spec even without a written rule". (If I recall correctly this is
in section 3.1 of the process document. It certainly isn't worth looking
up).
I find this comparison, in particular, to be unhelpful and rather rude.
Nobody is suggesting using expletives in specifications. The only
parallel I can imagine with the current situation is that some people
seem offended by the existence of the WHATWG, and for some reason want
to make sure no W3C publication ever mentions it. I had hoped we had
been able to come to a somewhat more mature relationship between this WG
and the WHATWG after the recent discussions about attribution, but
changes like this make me lose confidence in the goals of the W3C Team
and the chairs of this WG on this matter.
I maintain my technical objections to the publication.
HTH
Ms2ger
