- From: Mathew Marquis <mat@matmarquis.com>
- Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2012 13:00:31 -0400
- To: Sam Ruby <rubys@intertwingly.net>
- Cc: public-html@w3.org
On Oct 12, 2012, at 7:22 AM, Sam Ruby wrote: >> I think that it's risky to establish a new venue for each such >> specification. Experience suggests that developing specifications for >> the Web Platform without the participation of browser implementors >> leads to technically bad results and to frustration. Therefore, I >> advise against establishing a new Community Group for each feature >> like happened recently with responsive images. It's better to propose >> and develop new features where implementors are already participating >> productively and paying attention, such as the WHATWG or the WebApps >> WG. > > Browser implementors are participating in responsive images. Even with numerous publicly interested vendors it has been exceedingly difficult to find an implementor that is willing to be first to pull the trigger. I assume this is because their respective representatives in the WHATWG tend to be closest to the metal, and thus the ones making the final call. The most productive venue we’ve found so far is to have an independent developer start work on a prototype implementation for WebKit. In my experience, the implementors in the WHATWG can be fairly quick to propose and implement a feature—Maciej Stachowiak mentioned starting work on a native `srcset` implementation in the #whatwg IRC channel long before its extension specification was published. This leaves us with a fairly uneven playing field: if members of the WHATWG are key decision-makers in terms of features that see immediate implementation, all proposals but theirs are at a disadvantage. If anything, the process of working through our proposal in the Community Group—outside of the WHATWG’s usual process—soured them against us from the start. > Also, the WHATWG might not be the best counter example: not all implementors are already participating productively and paying attention to the WHATWG. > > I'll also note that not everybody who participates in the WHATWG is participating productively in the W3C HTML Working Group. > > This indeed is a hard problem. Man, I second that. My response here isn’t meant to come across as griping; I just thought it might be best to share my experience as a Community Group chair. It’s a tricky situation, for certain.
Received on Saturday, 13 October 2012 17:00:49 UTC