Re: Atom at W3C? - 2004 NY discussion minutes

Looking at the result of the Atom going to the IETF is interesting too.

I always felt that Atom was too rushed, resulting in a spec that failed to meet its full potential, and one that people are already making grumblings about revising.

The process was also *very* difficult; the WG's discussions were more often contentious and personal, getting consensus was difficult for the Chairs, and the wheels very nearly fell off.

Atom's adoption has also been less-than-stellar; although it's not a failure by any means, a number of people who worked on it have expressed that they're disappointed that it didn't get more take-up.

I'd also observe that distinguishing factors of that WG included:
  * A large number of people participating, with varying levels of commitment
  * Very few F2F meetings
  * A focus on schedule

Of course, no one knows whether it would have turned out any differently if we'd had a more exclusive (yes, that dirty word!) group of committed stakeholders with more personal contact and time. 

Cheers,


On 03/07/2010, at 3:09 PM, Karl Dubost wrote:

> Chaals,
> 
> Le 24 juin 2010 à 19:26, Charles McCathieNevile a écrit :
>> Talking about what has successfully gone through W3C and what has been bogged down, and why, might be helpful. If it is a clear and frank explanation.
> 
> This is one example: the discussions [1] around Atom. 
> We approached the Atom people and discussed if there 
> was an opportunity to make this happen at W3C. I was 
> around the table.
> 
> If I remember correctly, there were 2 big fears:
> 
> * Semantic Web gurus influencing the work
> * too slow compared to IETF
> 
> Sam Ruby wanted the thing out the 1st quarter of 2005.
> 	"I'd like to go for PR at 1st qtr of next year."
> 
> During the discussions, David Orchard said something 
> interesting
> 
> 	do: Advantage is the community of people. W3C is 
> 	a mixture of vendor-driven and team-driven. It 
> 	doesn't have as much of a grassroots. There's a 
> 	perception that it would be difficult to get 
> 	grassroots into W3C."
> 
> Then W3C drafted a charter [2] to give a more concrete 
> proposal to the Atom community. There was a discussion 
> about this, on the atom list [3]. An explanation of Matt 
> May on Atom-W3C discussions [4]. One on XML.com [6]. 
> And from Tim Bray [7]. And from Isolani. [8]
> 
> Atom went to IETF, and became the RFC 4287 [5] in 
> December 2005, a bit later that what Sam wanted but not 
> that far off. I have the feeling it would have taken a 
> bit more time at W3C. 
> 
> 
> [1]: http://www.w3.org/2004/05/18-atom-nyc
> [2]: http://www.intertwingly.net/wiki/pie/W3cCharter
> [3]: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=+site:www.imc.org+%22Atom++WG+W3C+Charter+Mockup%22
> [4]: http://www.bestkungfu.com/archive/date/2004/06/atomw3c-redux/
> [5]: http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4287
> [6]: http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2004/05/19/deviant.html
> [7]: http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2004/06/02/AtomMeetingReport
> [8]: http://www.isolani.co.uk/blog/atom.html
> 
> -- 
> Karl Dubost
> Montréal, QC, Canada
> http://www.la-grange.net/karl/
> 
> 

--
Mark Nottingham       mnot@yahoo-inc.com

Received on Saturday, 3 July 2010 18:30:35 UTC