RE: Issue-100 - proceeding with open exclusion periods

Comments at end below.
Steve Z

> -----Original Message-----
> From: chaals@yandex-team.ru [mailto:chaals@yandex-team.ru]
> Sent: Wednesday, November 26, 2014 10:10 AM
> To: Wayne Carr; Revising W3C Process Community Group
> Subject: Re: Issue-100 - proceeding with open exclusion periods
> 
> 
> 
> 26.11.2014, 20:55, "Wayne Carr" <wayne.carr@linux.intel.com>:
> > On 2014-11-26 03:49, chaals@yandex-team.ru wrote:
> >>  Hi,
> >>
> >>  TL;DR: I don't think we need a change, but I won't be fighting hard against
> one.
> >>
> >>  Currently, it is *theoretically* possible to publish a Recommendation while
> the CR exclusion period is still open:
> >>
> >>  Details:
> >>
> >>  On entering CR, a 60-day exclusion period begins.
> >>  The CR period must be four weeks (i.e. 28 days) long.
> >>  The Proposed Recommendation review period (which can theoretically
> begin the day after the CR period ends) must be 28 days.
> >>  If there is no dissent, the director's decision could be made and the
> document published 56 days after the CR period begins - i.e. while there are 4
> days left in the exclusion period.
> >>
> >>  The current process explicitly states that the PR review *should* end at
> least 10 days after the final exclusion period, and in practice entering PR the
> day after finishing CR (equivalent in the old Process to a zero-length CR period
> immediately after the period for last call comments closes) is rare and indeed
> very difficult to organise. Note that under the current process, AC comments
> may come in at the *beginning of *CR**, not just during the PR period. One
> reason for this is to give a sense of whether the spec under review is urgently
> desired by industry, or possibly only relevant to the editor and a friend, which
> in turn should help W3C work out how much they need to prioritise getting the
> spec through the process.
> >>
> >>  The "threat model" is as follows:
> >>  FooAPI 1.0 is developed by the MadScience WG, and enters CR at 00:00 on
> 1 october.
> >>  All members of the WG explicitly declare that they have no patents to
> exclude by 3 October, there are no comments (after all, it is a great spec), and
> at 00:00 on 29 October a PR is published.
> >
> >  PSIG should be consulted.
> 
> They have.
> 
> >  It's my understanding that if all WG
> > members explicitly declare that they have nothing to exclude, then the
> > exclusion period ends then.
> 
> It is my understanding of the discussion there that if a new member joins, the
> exclusion period still applies.
> 
> >>  The responses are entirely positive, and on 26 November (thanksgiving
> blackouts being a thing of the past) a Recommendation is published.
> >>  On 27 November, the "Cool Science In Real Operations" anarcho-syndicalist
> collective joins the working group, since they are very interested in FooAPI 2,
> and announce that they have a patent they plan to exclude. Which, it turns out,
> is as essential for FooAPI 1.0 as FooAPI 2.0.
> >
> > Joining seems irrelevant if they're just going to exclude anyway.
> 
> We ask people to join, and disclose, and it is highly relevant that people do so
> whether or not they exclude.
> 
> > If they don't join (and so exclusion is irrelevant) and a month after
> > REC they disclose they think they have an essential claim that they
> > aren't willing to license, we're in the same boat.  And then we're
> > talking about rescinding a REC.
> 
> No, we are still talking about a PAG, which may come to that conclusion or a
> different one.
> 
> >>  (Note, this skates over some issues where the Patent Policy itself is
> apparently not clear, but in any event a Recommendation which is known to be
> covered by an patent that isn't offered RF is a problem, and depending on how
> you interpret the policy the scenario can be changed to fit - e.g. the collective
> never joins the WG but announces their patent and outrageously unreasonable
> dsicriminatory terms, or some other variation).
> >>
> >>  So, what to do?
> >>  That this is at all possible has been the case forever. In practice it assumes
> no comments requiring much time to process, a desire on the part of the
> director to get everything done as fast as possible, and no dissent in the last 10
> days of PR review - under the current process any dissent must be answered in
> public 14 days before the director can make a decision, which would blow the
> ability to produce a *Recommendation*.
> >>
> >>  There are some recommendations (if it becomes one, longdesc springs to
> mind) which are entirely based on work done 15, 20 or more years ago, for
> which it is truly unlikely that there are any patent concerns. Nonetheless,
> members may feel happier with a process that does not allow the freedom of
> judgement to W3C. The issue proposes that a constraint be added so a PR
> cannot be published while an exclusion period is open.
> >>
> >>  This is certainly fairly trivial to achieve in the text. There several possible
> approaches, including extending the CR review period to match the exclusion
> period, or stating that for a document to become a PR there must be no open
> exclusion opportunity.
> >
> > Why would we want PR not to start until the exclusion period ends?
> 
> That was the suggestion from Dave Singer, subsequently turned into an
> objection, resolved by agreeing to Process-2014 on the basis that we would
> address some outstanding objections in 2015.
> 
> > (usually nothing happens in the exclusion period).  We should say PR
> > can't end while there is an open exclusion period and not try to do
> > the day counting to add up to whatever the exclusion period turns out
> > to be.  The Director isn't going to approve a REC when someone has
> > just excluded or even someone outside the WG disclosed a patent claim
> > that seems relevant.  I don't think we have to state something obvious
> > like that.  But, we should change the wording to not have PR end any
> > earlier than the day after the last exclusion period ends. (and if it
> > happens, there are a stream of formal objections and even if that
> > doesn't happen, the Director has plenty of time to look at it.)
> 
> What you suggest is effectively what the Process suggests as the default, and
> what I suggest remain the default.
> 
> The Process uses "should" not "must" so in principle it is possible to go to the
> extreme I decided. As I point out, that is very difficult in practice, as well as
> unlikely given someone somewhere is thinking a little bit - I note that the
> current practice is explicitly to avoid it by checking for open exclusion periods.
> 
> An alternative approach to resolving this issue by not allowing PR during an
> exclusion would be to change the "should end at least 10 days after any
> exclusion period" to a "must".
> 
> As I said originally, I don't really care a lot which outcome we choose. But It
> would be good to resolve the issue some time soon.
> 
> >>  My personal preference is to leave the situation as it stands, making the
> situation where a PR goes out before the exclusion period closes unlikely and
> getting to Rec *almost* impossible, but allowing it in principle. This matches
> the "moar agile" aspirations of the Process Task Force, but I also don't think the
> question is particularly important - adding an extra delay of 5 weeks at the very
> end of the Process, by which time we expect the decision to be a formality
> when everyone has done their job well, is unlikely to be a huge problem in the
> real world.
[SZ] I do not support not starting PR until all exclusion periods are completed. I do support either the existing text, or if it is more likely to result in no objections, changing the existing "should end at least 10 days after any exclusion period" to a "must".
> 
> cheers
> --
> Charles McCathie Nevile - web standards - CTO Office, Yandex chaals@yandex-
> team.ru - - - Find more at http://yandex.com

Received on Wednesday, 26 November 2014 20:27:07 UTC