Re: EverTeal

On 11/4/19 8:48 AM, Jeff Jaffe wrote:
> Thanks.
> 
> A few comments.
> 
> 1. In "Changes are additive", it is a little too glib to say that if you were 
> happy with the old system nothing changes.  For example, if you are an AC rep 
> or an attorney, you need to process an entirely new PP.  Part of that includes 
> the reality that you need to process some new states:

Fair. This was mostly written from the PoV of the working groups, not the 
legal staff. :) Adjusted the prose a bit.

> CRSs that may have greater frequency.

Not necessarily. The current process does not rate-limit CRs.

> 2. As a corollary to (1), we might consider separate explainers for different 
> folks.  I'm not sure that each of the following categories require different 
> explanations, but some of the stakeholders we have include:
> 
>   * AC Reps
>   * Attorneys
>   * Contributors
>   * Active WG participants
>   * Editors (especially LS style Editors)
>   * Chairs

I don't think separate explainers is the answer here, because that would 
either require a lot of duplication or result in a lot of missing context.

But if there are questions or concerns that don't have a straightforward 
explanation, we should add it. For example, LS is addressed in its own 
“Maintaining a Living Standard” section; Horizontal Review is addressed in its 
own section; Patent Policy has its own section; etc. What other sections do 
you think need to be added?

> 3. The first four major bullets under "What's New" can perhaps be couched as 
> one major bullet - that we are finding methods to increase agility on the REC 
> track in several fashions, including the possibility of Living Standards.  

This is the detailed list of changes. If you want the higher-level list, where 
"we made it easier to maintain RECs and CRs", you can read the earlier one. 
Maybe it needs its own heading?

> This is a major selling point of Process 2020 - but by breaking down the four 
> use cases, it occludes the higher level purpose.  Once that is explained, it 
> can then describe that there are different parts to providing this agility and 
> describe the 4 use cases (in a parallel thread with Florian, I'm still 
> thinking that three use cases may be sufficient).

See the list above the one you're complaining about...

> 4. What's New/CR Updates.  This section should have a bullet which explains 
> the purpose - namely to have a current version on TR even while it takes a 
> while to get to REC.

Good point. I added “This allows the WG to continuously keep its official 
specification up to date with the latest WG thinking between CR snapshots.” 
Let me know if that seems adequate.
> 6.  PP.  I thought we also were introducing Contribution licenses?

Good point, I forgot that one. :) Fixed.

> 7. I generally liked the ET Explainer.  Thank you.  As per points 4 and 5 
> above, I do think that we can intermix more of the "motivation" with the 
> mechanical description of "how to".
> 
> You start that when you have sentences such as "To facilitate review of 
> changes, all phases allow informative annotation of proposed changes."  But I 
> think we can have better explanation of the motivation.  For example:
> 
> "Proper spec development allows continuous availability of proposed changes to 
> the community.  The current W3C process inhibits that because once a spec 
> reaches CR (and especially once it reaches REC) it becomes very hard to 
> change.  This demotivates the community; actually reduces effort on keeping 
> specs up to date; and does not give developers an accurate view of the WG's 
> thinking or of implementations.
> 
> Process 2020 introduces the possibility of including informative annotation of 
> proposed changes in W3C documents and publishing them on /TR.  This will solve 
> a host of problems.  It will allow CR-level documents to be updated without 
> complicated approvals, and will allow greater agility in updating RECs.  At 
> the same time, it still ensures that nothing becomes a W3C REC without 
> ultimately going through the rigors of wide review, horizontal review, 
> implementation experience, AC review, and Director review.
> 
> These enhancements to annotation and publishing provide a Living Standards 
> capability as a native capability of the W3C Recommendation Track.  For some 
> specs, where patent commitments are desired, but the label of W3C REC is not 
> considered important - the agility provides a method to have a Living 
> Standards approach without ever reaching the Recommendations level.
> 
> In order to build these capabilities into the REC track we have made the REC 
> track a bit more complex.  There are additional potential states to the REC 
> track.  But for a WG taking a spec through the REC track, there is not much 
> more complexity.  The new states are quite similar to the existing states.  
> And many of the transitions between states can proceed more automatically (in 
> some cases without Director approval) as part of a general exercise of 
> increasing agility."

This is great, thanks! I've added a Motivation section to the top, largely 
from what you've written here. I didn't intermix it with your summary of 
changes, though, because I didn't want to duplicate content more than about 
twice... and I wanted to keep the explainer easy to scan.

> 8. If you choose to add an extended motivation section as exemplified in point 
> #7 above, some of the other verbiage for ET might be tailored a bit to support 
> the extended motivation section.

I like this idea... haven't executed it yet, though. :)

~fantasai

Received on Tuesday, 5 November 2019 00:21:27 UTC