Re: Working group moving forward?

Hi Julian,

I've been completely out of touch on vacation since the last lull in 
conversation on this list.  I'm still catching up.  Joe seems offline 
today and I don't know what his status is -- likely travelling.

Lisa

On May 9, 2005, at 2:35 PM, Julian Reschke wrote:

>
> Jim Whitehead wrote six weeks ago:
>
>> Joe,
>> Thank you for sharing your thoughts on the WebDAV WG, and its future
>> direction. Thank you as well for your contributions to this working 
>> group as
>> its Co-Chair. I know well that this is a time consuming and often 
>> thankless
>> task.
>> But (and you knew a "but" was coming :-) I do disagree with you on 
>> several
>> points.
>>> My take on what I've seen in the last several months of the WebDAV 
>>> working group is that if there was to be a BOF session today, I 
>>> don't see any way that a working group would get approved.
>> Irrelevant. In 1996 there was a clear and present need for an 
>> interoperable
>> web authoring standard. At that time, the WebDAV BOF had a standing 
>> room
>> crowd. Of course there would be fewer people today, just as it would 
>> be hard
>> to have a broadly attended FTP BOF, or Telnet BOF. We're not in that 
>> phase
>> of development. We're in completion mode, not ramp up mode. It's never
>> exciting to dot the final "i" and cross the final "t".
>>> As far as where we are now, some of the current drafts might make 
>>> much better progress as individual submissions.
>> This is very unclear. The progress of individual submissions in the 
>> RFC
>> editor's queue, once they have received IESG approval, is glacial. 
>> They
>> never turn into RFCs. Working group documents fare much better in 
>> terms of
>> responsiveness.
>>> Keep in mind that in the current process the WG chair has to shepard 
>>> WG drafts through.  As much as editors may not like this, it means 
>>> that you have to get at least one WG chair fired
>>> up enough about your draft to take on this responsibility.
>> A Chair assumes certain duties when they take on the position of 
>> Chair. I do not see any process RFC that states that document authors 
>> are required
>> to generate enthusiasm in their Chairs.
>>> My guess for BIND is that either Ted or Scott would want 
>>> clarification on a couple of the interoperability questions that 
>>> Lisa has raised, regardless of whether the answer can be inferred by 
>>> a fully-informed reader.
>> I agree, and applaud that you, as Chair, are helping to focus the 
>> discussion
>> of the working group on productive, tangible work items.
>>
>>> Frankly, I don't think the working group process is adding much in 
>>> the way of value for the drafts we are working on, compared with 
>>> other WGs I've participated in.  As such, it may be needless 
>>> bureaucracy, and we ought to think about decommissioning it.
>> I disagree. This working group has had a good track record over the 
>> past few
>> years of shipping specifications to RFC status (3648 in 12/2003, 3744 
>> in
>> 5/2004). These specifications have had multiple implementations, and 
>> are in
>> shipping code that meet thousand's of people's needs on a daily basis.
>> The issues raised in the recent last calls have been subtle, and 
>> resolving
>> them has significantly enhanced the quality and value of the final
>> specifications. IMO, this is evidence of a working group doing what 
>> it's
>> supposed to do: providing careful, informed review, and producing top
>> quality specifications.
>> I think the WebDAV Working Group can very usefully serve two more 
>> purposes,
>> neither of which needs to take much time.
>> 1) Complete BIND.
>> 2) Complete Quota.
>> Both are very close to completion. Once these two are done, then it 
>> seems
>> reasonable to disband WebDAV WG. Given how close these two documents 
>> are to
>> being done, it would be a waste of all of the effort that has gone 
>> into them
>> to date to stop their development as WG items now.
>> - Jim
>
> I'd really appreciate if the working group chairs would follow up. We 
> need to have this dicussion.
>
>
> Best regards, Julian
>

Received on Monday, 9 May 2005 22:16:23 UTC