RE: Closing down this Community Group

Fred,

I have tried in the past to help you understand the W3C Process
(http://www.w3.org/2005/10/Process-20051014/tr.html#Reports), yet you
continue to operate under some apparent serious misconceptions. 

Let me try yet again:

> ... in fact the W3C has
> stated that the views expressed here will not be considered until
> a later stage in the process and the W3C has refused to define how
> they will be considered.

The W3C is not a democracy - it is ultimately an autocracy: when things
reach an absolute impasse then the final decision always rests with the
Director, currently Tim Berners-Lee. TBL weighs the issue, looks at the
facts and bases his decisions on technical merits. His decision is generally
final.

There is an Advisory Committee, which consists of 1 member (AC Rep) per paid
member organization, who can provide "official" feedback and policy input on
behalf of their employer/organization. The EFF, as a paid member for
example, has one member on the Advisory Committee. As part of TBL's decision
process he would likely poll the membership of the AC to see how the members
respond: they generally do not "vote" on process, although the consensus or
majority consensus of that group does carry weight. They will call for a
vote only when a W3C Decision is formally appealed
(http://www.w3.org/2005/10/Process-20051014/acreview.html#ACVotes) - which
is significantly later in the process than where the EME process is today.

Prior to that, the W3C operates using a consensus process
(http://www.w3.org/2005/10/Process-20051014/policies.html#Consensus) which
again is not a "vote", nor is it a popularity contest - it is based upon
consensus around *technical* matters, not policy.

The EFF have already filed a Formal Objection to the work around EME
(https://www.eff.org/pages/drm/w3c-formal-objection-html-wg +
http://dev.w3.org/html5/status/formal-objection-status.html), and at this
time the process and next-steps is quite clear:
http://www.w3.org/2005/10/Process-20051014/policies.html#formal-address. 

Stating that the W3C has "refused to define" how community feedback will be
handled is simply untrue, as is any suggestion that the process or steps of
the process have not been provided to you or others. The URLs are there -
your failure to read the W3C Process document does not constitute a
"refusal" on the part of the W3D.

As well, Community groups do not, and never have had, any chartered status
at the W3C (http://www.w3.org/community/about/#cg) - they provide a forum
for discussion and community input to chartered Working Groups: efforts of a
community group *can* be formally taken up by a chartered WG, but there is
no obligation to do so. If you are dissatisfied with participation in this
community group, you are free to leave. "Closing down this community group"
however serves no purpose, and is (frankly) a silly suggestion.


> We need to be moving people interesting in contributing to the
> standards into voting positions in the relevant working groups
> and this is not served by the existence of this group so I propose
> closing down this community group and directing the HTML working
> group to accommodate the members within the working groups as voting
> invited experts.

There is no such thing as a "Voting invited expert" - subject matter experts
are invited into a working group if and when they demonstrate a technical
competence in a particular area (http://www.w3.org/2004/08/invexp), but who
are not aligned with a paid member of the W3C. The Invited Expert status for
the HTML WG is something of an anomaly in that the ability to become an
Invited Expert in *that* group is significantly easier than other chartered
WGs. Recently the list of Invited Experts in the HTML WG was reviewed and
members who have not contributed where retired, with the option of
re-applying to be an Invited Expert communicated out.


> If necessary I will challenge for the position of Chair of this
> group and seek a mandate to closing it down.

Challenge who, and how? Chair selection for the various Working Groups is
not a public process, and I know for a fact that in the case of at least one
Chair of the HTML WG, that they were asked to be a Chair directly by TBL. So
while I am sure that TBL will afford you every respect he can as an
individual citizen and member of the web community, I hardly believe that
your 'challenge' will motivate him to make any serious changes to the
Working Group, although I hope you do try.


> The Director of the W3C has challenged the public to take back the
> web and we should all move forward on this now and take back control
> of the working groups.

And therein lies the (to me, primary) source of your misconception: that
somehow the general public "controls" the HTML WG. This is simply not true -
the general public provides input, along with the paid members (via their AC
Reps), and the work is directed by the Chairs and done by contributing
engineers. 

Finally, and significant to this discussion, the browser vendors (all paid
members of the W3C by the way) will implement what they want, when they
want, how they want: they strive to work together inside the W3C for
interoperability of technical standards, but even if the W3C chooses to not
work on a specific standard, those commercial entities who are the browser
vendors can and still do work on technical matters and specifications that
best meet their commercial business needs. 

Fred, please stop confusing the W3C with some form of social forum - it is
not a democratic commons, it is a managed technical specification
organization that seeks to keep the web as open and interoperable as
possible. It has processes and procedures, which are all publicly available
to read (I have provided you links here, and numerous other times), and it
chooses to operate in the open, under public scrutiny, as it is believed
that this is an important aspect of the work they produce. The standards
they produce are open and free to any and all to voluntarily adopt, and are
covered by a license policy that expressly ensures that they are "public"
(http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/2002/ipr-notice-20021231).  

It is not, however, Wikipedia, Apache, Linux or the EFF, and believing
somehow that the masses can rise up to "take back control" of the W3C is
simply fiction - the masses never had control, they simply benefit from the
work of the W3C. Their input is extremely valuable, but is not the final
word.

JF

Received on Thursday, 12 December 2013 18:20:13 UTC