On 11/26/2014 12:24 PM, Michael Champion (MS OPEN TECH) wrote:
Several of us on the AB believe that we need to "detoxify" the
working relationship between people who prefer the WHATWG work mode
and those who see value in the outputs of the W3C process. We
acknowledge that W3C's traditional processes and policies -- at least
as they have been executed in practice -- have been part of the
problem. But none of these are carved in stone. If someone
identifies specific text in the member agreement or invited experts
agreement that makes effective collaboration harder, let's discuss
how to fix them.
For starters, the The Invited Expert and Collaborator Agreement
explicitly disallows «Branching», which I must say is pretty toxic
position to take. Among other things, arguably that would disallow
GitHub pull requests.
While, as you say, "none of these are carved in stone", there seems to
be extreme reluctance to proposing changes to the Invited Expert and
Collaborator Agreement given how that discussion went last time.
Despite that reluctance, I'm proposing that the W3C do exactly that:
https://github.com/webspecs/url/blob/develop/docs/workmode.md#patent-policy
I would suggest that getting participants to agree to make the necessary
IPR commitments is an essential ingredient.
- Sam Ruby
