On 3/28/2012 9:29 AM, Karl Dubost wrote:
Jeff,
Le 28 mars 2012 à 09:10, Jeff Jaffe a écrit :
What are the alternatives? The editor is entitled to his opinion if he
disagrees. And the WG is entitled to their opinion if they disagree with the
editor.
CONTEXT: I'm not taking side. I'm just interested by my impression of
the social dynamic at play.
I do not think it is really about the editor, Ian Hickson here.
Let's rewind a bit the historical tape. :)
The old:HTMLWG was left by the browser vendors because the feedback
on fixing HTML4 was not listened (A bigger part of the W3C Membership
had decided to move on XHTML work). So the browser vendors which were
interested in fixing the issues they had in their environment created
what became the WHATWG. Unfortunate but common in social communities.
At a point the old:HTMLWG was doing practical work on XHTML2 and XForms
but in a way which was a kind of fork, in a parallel universe with
people with different priorities.
Fast-forward to now.
It is happening again. The new:HTMLWG is being more and more abandoned
if not totally abandoned by the participation of browser vendors because
of different visions on what should be HTML. The difference is that
people are still in the WG, but they mostly do not really participate.
Or more exactly the participation is on arguing more than looking for
common solutions. People trying to assess they are right, more than "how
do we improve this, this is a cool idea, let's do better." People from
browser vendors feel they will have more fruitful contributions outside
of the new:HTMLWG. So we end up with a specification which is not bad
but is indeed drifting away from what one powerful part of the community
wants.
Yes, we work some of these issues on a regular basis. In terms of
browser vendor support for the WG, I note that two of the three chairs
and the editor are from three different browser vendors. But, sure, we
can do better.
As I said to Steve, I didn't understand what was being recommended.
We can also note that /new:HTMLWG/ is mainly discussing about accessibility
issues, DRM, etc. Topics which are already heavy per se.
On the other hand, to note, that a lot of cool stuff is happening in WebApps
WG and DOM WG. People have disagreement sometimes but there is a very active
participation.
