For what it's worth, I don't think a new standards process should start
while the current standard is still controversial and relatively
untested. Too many people (including me) have arguments still too
fresh in our minds from the R6 process and are too invested in one side
or the other of technical questions; we'd be coming to the process with
these prejudices intact but no actual experience to show us which of
our prejudices and intuitions are validated or invalidated by the
appearance of practical problems or solutions.
Because prejudices and intuitions are all over the map, but practical
experience less so, I suspect a standards process uninformed by a few
years of practical experience will be fragmented and contentious, likely
to generate, as they say, "more heat than light."
If R6 is good, then a few years of coding experience will show us
dissenters that it's good and that we don't need to obsess on "fixing"
it. If R6 is, as I believe, flawed, a few years of coding experience
will serve to convince enthusiasts of the flaws and produce agreement
about exactly what is causing the most problems and most needs fixed.
Both R6 dissenters and R6 enthusiasts, therefore, need experience with
the thing to temper our viewpoints and focus our attention on what
issues are real and what standards work honestly needs doing.
I humbly suggest that the R7 process should start sometime in 2010
rather than today.
Bear
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