fate of IRI working group in IETF

During the last week and this, there were a number of discussions about the various efforts around the IRI specification and conflicts (or potential conflicts, or relationships) between the IETF RFCs 3986, 3987, 4395, and IETF IRI wg drafts for 3987bis, comparison, registration, bidi, the W3C HTML working group documents which currently refer to them, http://url.spec.whatwg.org in WHATWG, and the planned W3C WebApps working group URL spec which is planned to produce a stable copy of the WHATWG spec.dd

I thought I'd would state my personal opinions, for the record, not as an official statement from anyone (Adobe, W3C, IETF, ...), but just in case I might have been misquoted (or misspoke):e

Background:
* I have been disappointed by the lack of participation, energy, document reviews in the IETF IRI working group; a working group which doesn't have significant active participation and document review should be shut  (rather than trying to maintain the illusion of progress)
* there are significant parts of the Internet infrastructure (including most of HTTP protocol-based servers proxies gateways) which use RFC 3986 as is, and do not want or need IRIs or a broader definition
* most of the implementors of browsers are interested in following and giving feedback on http://url.spec.whatwg.org .


Given this background:
* I support closing IETF IRI working group and discontinuing work on its documents. If for some reason it remains open, or others wish to continue work in IETF on these specs as independent submissions, please remove me as editor.

* I support encouraging Anne van Kesteren to continue working on http://url.spec.whatwg.org 

* I support the plan that the WebApps working group will produce a derivative work which is a stable edition suitable for reference by a stable document such as the W3C HTML standard (having stable documentation for critical system interfaces is necessary for many procurement contracts). 

* I encourage Anne and others to continue to work on the URL spec, testing and test cases, and considering including more of the useful work done in the current IRI working group documents.

* If and when a stable URL document is produced (via WebApps WG) I will encourage an IETF  RFC to "close off" the  IRI standards track by obsoleting RFC 3987 with a reference to the W3C stable URL specification (if feasibile).

* While liaison between IETF and W3C is good, I wish others had taken a more proactive approach to resolving the apparent organizational conflicts, including the WHATWG perspective. There are a few other issues caught between the organizations (the "willful violations"), and I hope that a calmer more principled approach can be taken.

Questions? Comments?

Larry
--
http://larry.masinter.net


> -----Original Message-----
> From: "Martin J. Dürst" [mailto:duerst@it.aoyama.ac.jp]
> Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2012 5:40 AM
> To: Peter Saint-Andre
> Cc: public-iri@w3.org
> Subject: Meeting materials (was: Re: updated IRI agenda)
> 
> On 2012/11/07 2:50, Peter Saint-Andre wrote:
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > Hash: SHA1
> >
> > Based on discussion with our Area Director, I have updated the agenda
> > so that we cover the "URL" topic and future path topic first. It would
> > not surprise me if those discussions run over the allotted time, so be
> > prepared for the possibility that we will not get to some of the later
> > agenda items.
> 
> That's what happened. It's a bit sad, because although not overly
> impressive, there was actually some progress.
> 
> Also, the agenda did not include a link to the meeting materials at
> https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/85/materials.html#wg-iri

> (I'm not blaming Peter, because there are way more links in the Agenda
> than what I'd be able to collect.)
> 
> Of the four slide links, I think the Introduction slides and the "Recent
> Bulk Registration Experience" slides
> (http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/85/slides/slides-85-iri-8.pdf) were shown.
> 
> I hope that everybody interested can have a quick look at the slides on
> the main draft (draft-ietf-iri-3987bis,
> http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/85/slides/slides-85-iri-6.pdf, 8 pages)
> and the slides on the bidi draft
> (http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/85/slides/slides-85-iri-7.pdf).
> 
> Regards,    Martin.
> 
> > Agenda bashing on the list or in real time this evening
> > is of course welcome.
> >
> > http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/85/agenda/agenda-85-iri

> >
> > Peter
> >
> > - --
> > Peter Saint-Andre
> > https://stpeter.im/

> >
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> >
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Received on Friday, 9 November 2012 01:49:39 UTC