Re: Non-substantive CR and Director's decision

Hi & happy new year,

Is there any plan to clarify this in process 2016?  
(i.e. at least answer the question on timing and figure out the details of how 
to detect a non-substantive CR vs. a substantive one at publication time) 

I can join a call if necessary. Chaals, do you prefer to have an issue 
filed in tracker?

[repeating the current state:]

On Mon, Nov 30, 2015 at 12:56:31PM +0000, Carine Bournez wrote:
> > >On Thu, 12 Nov 2015 15:16:56 +0100, Philippe Le Hegaret
> > ><plh@w3.org> wrote:
> > >
> > >>The Process indicates the following:
> > >>[[
> > >>If there are any substantive changes made to a Candidate
> > >>Recommendation other than to remove features explicitly
> > >>identified as "at risk", the Working Group must obtain the
> > >>Director's approval to publish a revision of a Candidate
> > >>Recommendation. This is because substantive changes will
> > >>generally require a new Exclusion Opportunity per section 4 of
> > >>the W3C Patent Policy [PUB33]. Note that approval is expected to
> > >>be fairly simple compared to getting approval for a transition
> > >>from Working Draft to Candidate Recommendation.
> > >>]]
> > >>http://www.w3.org/2015/Process-20150901/#revised-cr
> > >>
> > >>My understanding is that the W3C Process allows the publication
> > >>of a revised candidate recommendation *without* Director's
> > >>approval if there are *no substantive changes*. It would also
> > >>mean that no call for exclusions are issued as well.
> > >>
> > >>Is that a correct understanding?
> > 
> > I think it clearly says that if there are no substantive changes or
> > if the substantive changes are removing "at risk" sections, then you
> > can publish without Director's approval.
> > 
> > Otherwise it would make no sense to have "substantive " in the
> > sentence.  It would say  if there are "any changes" other than
> > removing at risk, you need the Director.
> 
> 
> The essential point of the question was actually whether or not a Call
> for Exclusion should be issued. Common sense would be to say no, since 
> there's no new feature, but there might be corner cases, e.g. if a member 
> excludes a patent about a feature at risk that is removed during the 
> exclusion period (of the original CR publication), it might invalidate
> the whole exclusion mechanism (IANAL). Is it possible to republish 
> a (editorial only) CR during the exclusion period of the previous one?
> Last Calls used to be always with-substantial-changes publications, with
> their own Call for Exclusions, no overlap. I think it might make sense
> to allow for without-substantial-changes-except-removing-features-at-risk CRs
> with the condition that the exclusion period of the previous substantive CR
> is over.
> 
> Also the current wording in section 6.4 says:
> <<
> A Candidate Recommendation corresponds to a "Last Call Working Draft" as used in the W3C Patent Policy [PUB33]. Publishing a Candidate Recommendation triggers a Call for Exclusions, per section 4 of the W3C Patent Policy [PUB33].
> >>
> 
> So there's a bit of process clarification and editorial work needed, it seems.

-- 
Carine Bournez /// W3C Europe

Received on Wednesday, 6 January 2016 13:44:03 UTC