Re: Publishing a new draft

Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
> 
> On Jul 28, 2009, at 10:04 PM, Larry Masinter wrote:
> 
>>> Ian, Anne, Mike: it is time to meet our heartbeat requirements.  Would
>>> it be possible for each of you to do whatever magic it takes to produce
>>> a new published draft (and accompanying HTML 5 differences document)?
>>
>>> I'm quite willing to go with lazy consensus on this, so unless anybody
>>> objects to us replacing the 23 April draft with a more recent version,
>>> and does so by the time we complete our next call (possibly to be
>>> scheduled for 30 July), then I will view that as a group decision to
>>> publish.
>>
>> I object to the working group ONLY publishing a new draft of
>> the Hixie fork of the HTML5 specification, because the industry
>> and the public are already confused enough about the state of
>> the activities of the W3C HTML working group and the process
>> we are embarking on.
>>
>> My objection would be satisfied if we also simultaneously published
>> Mike Smith's document and/or Manu's fork as First Public Working
>> Drafts along with a clear public explanation of the process we
>> are now engaging.
> 
> Publishing an FPWD is a bigger deal than publishing a WD. First, FPWD 
> triggers a patent review clock where an ordinary working draft does not 
> (the next step after FPWD to trigger a patent review time limit is Last 
> Call). Thus I don't think fast track lazy consensus is appropriate for 
> FPWD, as opposed to a normal Working Draft. And indeed, for the FPWD of 
> the current HTML5 draft, we held a formal vote and even delayed some 
> time after that for closer examination of objections from IBM and 
> Microsoft reps, among others.

Lazy consensus simply means that proceeding is OK as long as nobody 
objects, so all it takes is an objection to trigger a vote.

> Second, for a new document to be published as a Working Draft, Sam has 
> asked for at least three independent supporters. I don't think we've 
> done that assessment for either of the documents you cite.

s/supporters/contributors/, where I am willing to interpret contributor 
liberally.  In particular, Manu's draft has a number of open questions, 
anybody care to discuss them?  I'll also note that those that indicated 
a willingness to contribute to Mike's draft never seemed to follow through.

> And finally, I don't think the author of either of the alternative 
> drafts has stated their readiness to publish a First Public Working 
> Draft yet.
> 
> While I'm sure all of the above obstacles can be overcome, I don't think 
> we should miss our heartbeat requirement while waiting to deal with them.

Agreed.  But in any case, we clearly don't have Lazy Consensus to 
publish, so DanC or Mike, can you prepare a vote on the matter?

Meanwhile, the process is simple: people produce drafts and put them up 
for a consideration.  I've indicated what criteria I use to evaluate 
such work products, but even if there were zero people commenting on a 
draft or otherwise contributing, the rough consensus of the group (i.e., 
over my objections) were to publish anyway, it would happen.

> Regards,
> Maciej

- Sam Ruby

Received on Wednesday, 29 July 2009 11:33:15 UTC