Re: WebIDL Spec Status

On 6/24/14, 1:46 PM, Glenn Adams wrote:
> The primary goal of the W3C is to produce Technical Reports that reach a
> stable level of maturity.

The Technical Reports are not an end in themselves.  They're a means to 
an end.  This is why we don't produce Technical Reports that just say 
"do whatever" if we can avoid it, because that would fail to fulfill our 
_actual_ goals (which might differ for different W3C members of course; 
for some of them maybe "do whatever" is good enough for their purposes).

You're correct that sometimes the production of the Technical Report is 
viewed as an end in itself in an attempt to bridge the different 
member's actual goals.  Sometimes this works ok, and sometimes the 
result is a TR that is useless to some subset of members.

I happen to be affiliated with a member for whom most TRs (possibly all 
of them) as practiced by the W3C tend to be somewhat useless compared to 
the process of putting together the TR, so I have certain biases in that 
regard.

> If a WG fails to move a technical report to REC then it has failed its
> chartered purpose (as far as that report is concerned).

Yes, agreed, as the W3C process is set up right now.  It's a bug, not a 
feature.  ;)

> In my capacity in this WG, I represent a Full Member who pays for
> membership in order to see technical work reach completion.

Is this Member willing to devote resources to getting there?

Again, I'm not saying we shouldn't have a REC of Web IDL.  I'm saying 
that currently there's a perverse incentives problem: the only people 
who have stepped up to edit the spec are the ones who are affiliated 
with a Member which can'e make much use of a Web IDL REC in its current 
state all that much.  Which means that they end up, consciously or not, 
not prioritizing reaching REC on Web IDL v1, say, particularly highly.

> In the current situation, I think the best course would be for the chair
> and team members of this group to attempt to work with the editor to
> define a reasonable schedule for moving it forward to REC, and, if
> necessary call for volunteer co-editors if the current editor is unable
> to invest sufficient time to see through that process.

Yep, we agree.

-Boris

Received on Tuesday, 24 June 2014 17:58:23 UTC