Re: Charter Change should not be avoided if needed

Dave-

Thanks for starting to assemble a revised charter proposal.

Regarding the SC and Daniel’s earlier comments, I want to point out something.  The agreements and discussions from before the merger are not gone. There is an agreement between the former IDPF and the W3C that is separate from the group charters and that I know all of the former board members and the W3C staff intend to honor. Continuing to have some sort of steering committee was a part of that as well as finding ways to help the former IDPF members find ways to work with and get value from the W3C and publishing@w3c efforts. So though I am happy to discuss the role and make-up of the SC as well as a revised charter for the BG, I do not consider it to be an option to drop the SC.

Again, I’m not trying to pick a fight, I’m just trying to clarify the facts.

Liisa


From: Dave Cramer <dauwhe@gmail.com>
Date: Monday, February 5, 2018 at 7:06 PM
To: Daniel Glazman <daniel.glazman@disruptive-innovations.com>
Cc: "public-publishingbg@w3.org" <public-publishingbg@w3.org>
Subject: Re: Charter Change should not be avoided if needed
Resent-From: <public-publishingbg@w3.org>
Resent-Date: Monday, February 5, 2018 at 7:07 PM

On Mon, Feb 5, 2018 at 12:58 PM, Daniel Glazman <daniel.glazman@disruptive-innovations.com<mailto:daniel.glazman@disruptive-innovations.com>> wrote:
Le 05/02/2018 à 18:38, McCloy-Kelley, Liisa a écrit :

> 1- Why do you say “the SC has to be deeply reformed or better, dropped” – what is wrong with having a steering committee that is a liaison group that ensures the work is coordinated?

  a. the SC, as it is chartered now, *violates* the W3C BG Process.
     The SC *cannot* be "empowered to take any decision on behalf of
     the BG", it's just strictly forbidden by a "must not".

I've put the BG charter into a Google Doc, and made some suggested changes. Anyone with this link can edit; I suggest that people make changes in the suggesting mode so we can see what's changed:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OKmYjSGRx7ttipWTmngGHQkJmxnrH2tcePFOb-gQ7Pc/edit?usp=sharing<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OKmYjSGRx7ttipWTmngGHQkJmxnrH2tcePFOb-gQ7Pc/edit?usp=sharing>

"The Publishing BG may choose a Steering Committee, so that a smaller, more focused group of core contributors may help coordinate and facilitate the work of the CG, BG, and WG. The steering committee has no independent authority; formal decision-making remains in the Publishing BG as a whole. The membership of the Steering Committee should include the chairs of the BG, CG and WG (if those chairs are members of the BG), the W3C’s Publishing Champion, the W3C staff contacts for each group, and other members as decided by the BG."

I've made other changes, largely because the PWG already exists, and if we decide to choose the SC as we seem to be doing, we don't have to worry about two classes of directors, etc.




  b. the SC is "steering" because it's "empowered to...". The name is
     pointless and meaningless without it.

  c. do we really need a liaison subgroup in the BG while the whole BG
     itself is supposed to provide guidance to the various Groups, ie.
     be that liaison group between the Groups, the Industry and the W3C?

> 2- When you say “- I suggest to make EPUB3 CG chairs and PubWG chairs de facto members of the BG   - I suggest to make them formally liaise with and in the BG, through its Charter, and with W3C Staff in the loop.” Why do you think that isn’t already the case?

Nothing in the 3 EPUB3 CG, Pub WG and PUB BG Charter says the co-chairs
are 'de facto' BG Members. Charters need to say it for Patent Policy
reasons. It _may_ happen all the current chairs are _at this moment_
in the BG. There is absolutely nothing ensuring it for the future.
We never build a Charter for now, the expectation is to use it at least
for a couple of years. (and that's one of the reasons why I said
long ago this BG's Charter was far too suboptimal).

My suggested text states that CG and WG chairs are only part of the SC if they are members of the BG.


> I’m not trying to pick a fight. I’m just trying to understand your position and your understanding of how the Business Group has been working.

No worries.

> I’m a new co-chair, trying to do right by the group and also trying to be true to some of the agreement that we had when initially forming the business group around making it a less formal environment that was an easier on-ramp for people into the W3C method of working. That doesn’t mean that every W3C rule gets ignored or that process shouldn’t be followed. It does mean that we give people a break and don’t scare them away and maybe we use Google Docs for collecting shared collaboration rather than GitHub.

The agreements or discussions BEFORE THE MERGER are gone, Liisa. The
only things governing this BG are (in *decreasing* order of precedence):

  - the W3C Process
  - the W3C CG and BG Process
  - this Group's Charter
  - the W3C/IDPF merger agreement

Nothing else, sorry.

</Daniel>


Of course, another simple alternative is to not have a steering committee. This doesn't mean that we can't have a chairs call to try to coordinate between the various groups. Come to think of it, maybe the BG should just have 16 co-chairs :)

Dave