Draft minutes of 16 May QA WG teleconf

Hi,

The draft minutes of the QA WG teleconf we had today are available at:
http://www.w3.org/2005/05/16-qa-minutes.html and copied as text below:
16 May 2005

   [2]Agenda

      [2] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-qa-wg/2005May/0050.html

   See also: [3]IRC log

      [3] http://www.w3.org/2005/05/16-qa-irc

Attendees

   Present
          Dom, Karl, Richard, Patrick, Tim_Boland, Lofton, Dimitris,
          MSkall, DaveMarston

   Regrets
          Lynne

   Chair
          Karl

   Scribe
          Dom

Contents

     * [4]Topics
         1. [5]formal agreement to request SpecGL transition to PR
         2. [6]Test FAQ Published
         3. [7]Dublin hotel
         4. [8]Variability in Specification
         5. [9]Umbrella Specification and Profiles
         6. [10]Taxonomy of tests
     * [11]Summary of Action Items

     _________________________________________________________________

formal agreement to request SpecGL transition to PR

   karl: any disagreement wrt to requesting transition to PR
   ... ?

   tim: how do we look in terms of implementation?

   karl: the current implementation report is good enough
   ... so unless anybody wants to go back to making more spec reviews to
   check...

   dom: the schedule is only set by ourselves, so if you want moer time
   for gathering experiences, that's acceptable

   tim: I trust the W3C process will assess whether we have enough
   implementation
   ... we could always gather more reports, but if you feel what we have
   now is sufficient, that's fine with me

   mark: difficult to guess whether this is good enough

   lofton: I think we should go to the teleconf with the attitude that we
   have enough implementation reports
   ... in the few places where implementation is thin, I think we can
   argue that these are guidelines, independently of whether they were
   already in use
   ... SpecGL is different from CSS or DOM

   mark: plus, we have conversed with people, had many comments, have
   worked hard on the issues, have rewritten the doc

   karl: xml:id plays in our favour, too
   ... their ICS went from very bad to SpecGL compliant through
   discussions
   ... it shows that this can be achieved

   dimitris: reading the implementation report, it's patent that SPecGl
   availability has actually improved the specifications over time

   tim: do all the issues have to be resolved?

   dom: all our issues are resolved
   ... although some commenters disagree with our resolutions
   ... still trying to negotiate with Ian
   ... but even if there is disagreement, we can go to PR

   karl: I've replied to Ian with more details this morning
   ... hasn't reached the archives yet

   RESOLUTION: QA WG requests transition of SpecGL to PR

Test FAQ Published

   karl: Test FAQ was published last week
   ... bravo to Patrick and others
   ... it was announced on the chairs mailing list

   Tim: I've forwarded the announcement to WG I'm involved in

   Karl: It's a good thing to promote it insided W3C WG
   ... but promoting it outside W3C is also nice
   ... if you have opportunities, please do

   dom: any feedback yet?

   patrick: no feedback at this time

   tim: what's the process/schedule to integrated feedback?

   karl: no specific schedule; we update it when we receive feedback that
   we want to incorporate

   patrick: feedback address given in doc is www-qa-wg

   karl: we can republish and make additions to the document when we need

   mark: any other specific ideas to promote it? Conferences, this kind
   of opportunities coming up?

   karl: always good to do it at conferences
   ... another good way is to introduce it in small bits
   ... e.g. addressing a question in a mailing list with a pointer to the
   document
   ... can help attract readers

   dave: the testing faq has already been publicized to the XQuery Test
   TF
   ... don't know how many WGs have test moderators or task force
   ... there could be a cross-WG mailing lists to contact editors

   karl: xmlspec could also be used as a link to the FAQ

   tim: the WCAG techniques tf is working on testing issues
   ... I can see the utility of the test faq in that context

   patrick: I like the idea to point to specific answers and questions

Dublin hotel

   patrick: somebody looking it up for me
   ... it's coming

Variability in Specification

   karl: Dave has a proposal to reorganise the document

   DaveM: should there be a mention of some of these dimensions by
   citation over to SpecGL where they're already fully explained or
   should there be a repeat of the material? or another approach?

   dom: if we have nothing new to say about extensibility in ViS, I
   suggest dropping the section
   ... and linking to SpecGl

   Dave: so indeed extensibility could go away
   ... except for interrelationships between DoV

   karl: would it be possible to create templates to develop each of
   these DoV
   ... with questions to be addressed for each DoV
   ... ? this could help people to write content
   ... we could then use the wiki to get content

   tim: is ViS considered a specification?

   lofton: the SOTD says it's destined to be a WG Note

   mark: not clear to me how do we envision ViS to be used
   ... don't know how we can make decisions like this without having this
   vision

   dave: when ViS was started, the idea was to collect advanced topics
   that wouldn't fit in the spirit of SpecGL

   mark: so, read this document to learn more about the issues regarding
   variability

   dave: this doesn't imply whether this should go rec-track or not

   mark: if that's the model, I don't know why we wouldn't talk about
   extensions
   ... the extensions are important enough to be there

   dom: but we don't have anything new to that

   mark: but even a regurgitation of what's in SpecGL could fit
   ... it would be too bad if it wasn't there

   karl: my vision of ViS is a kind of encyclopedia vs SpecGL a technical
   framework
   ... what are the big/high-level issues wrt developing a specification

   dave: so, is there agreement that ViS is dependent of SpecGL
   ... and thus would assume that the reader has read SpecGL first

   karl: do we want to require this?

   dave: we could avoid it, but that would need more work

   dom: if we can avoid it, I'd rather, but that's only a nice thing to
   have IMO
   ... please note that we don't have many cycles to make progress on
   this doc, so we need to practical on how it goes forward

   dave: here is a proposal
   ... we keep a section on each DoV, with a small paragraph e.g. for
   extensions

   lofton: I wonder why each section doesn't link to the matching SpecGL
   section?
   ... eg profile/module/level don't link back to SpecGL

   dave: some DoV are so little developed in SpecGL (e.g PLM) while
   others are much more expanded (e.g. extensibility)

   dom: no link back is mostly an editorial oversight, I think

   lofton: so this link back could be the basis for the placeholders

   dave: so ViS would address all the DoV
   ... since there are consensus on that, we can go on to what should be
   the sequences of chapters
   ... currently, the sequencing in ViS is CoP, Profile/Modules/levels,
   extensibility, optional features
   ... extensibility should be last wrt to ordering of DoV

   lofton: deprecated features shouldn't be taken as part of optional
   features

   dave: how do people feel having several DoV in just one chapter?

   tim: what would the title be?

   dave: I don't have a proposal off the top of my head
   ... it may be better to have deprecation and optional features
   separated

   dom: I think it would be clearer

   dave: ok; but then why having profiles/modules/level bound together

   dom: profiles/modules/levels were bound because they were all
   subdivisions
   ... but I don't think we would lose much by separating them

   dave: current spec would flow well with this
   ... except for umbrella specs
   ... that we could move to modules
   ... let's see when we get back to discussing umbrella specs

   karl: how would like to proceed to edit the different parts and get
   contributions?

   dave: I think we should concentrate on getting a document published in
   a later version
   ... with the placeholders of extensions and deprecations
   ... and we would cut the PML section in 3... we would need to move the
   intro of PML somewhere else
   ... would need your help, karl, to do the technical editing

   karl: what about contributions? who should contribute?

   dave: if someone wants to write a quick paragraph on extensibility and
   deprecations, good
   ... but otherwise, I'll do it

   karl: what schedule to envision for this?
   ... also, if you can consider creating a template for the various
   parts, this would be really useful

   dave: I think this would be for another pass to the document
   ... I need a week to do the transformations we mentioned before
   ... if everybody agrees, it may be ready to go as early as after next
   week teleconf
   ... also, is there any feedback on my proposed rewrite?

   karl: please comment on the mailing list

Umbrella Specification and Profiles

   Karl: Tim asked whether profiles were umbrella specifications or not
   ... I think not, although I'm not necessarily objecting to it
   ... Dom thought they were
   ... but wondered what we wanted to do with this concept

   Tim: what about specifications that may point to several technologies?
   how do we defined technology?

   karl: as CDF - compound document format?

   tim: there is a tendency to bind technologies together

   karl: it's very rare that specifications don't rely on other
   technologies
   ... what do you expect from umbrella specs?

   dom: I guess my question was really why do we define this concept if
   we don't say anything about it?

   karl: origin of this is "how to move forward a technology defined in
   many pieces?"

   dave: there are already wg producing umbrella specifications

   dom: the fact they exist isn't enough
   ... again, there is nothing said except the definition about umbrella
   specs

   karl: another related topic is whether defining a module without an
   umbrella spec is good or not
   ... the example came because of CSS3
   ... we probably need to discuss it more on the mailing list

   <scribe> ACTION: karl to give a better outline of the issue and to
   move forward the discussion on umbrella specs [recorded in
   [12]http://www.w3.org/2005/05/16-qa-minutes.html#action01]

Taxonomy of tests

   dom: was developed by Daniel back in 2001
   ... lofton asked whether we still agree with this classification
   ... and patrick wonders whether and how this should be integrated in
   the FAQ

   patrick: this addresses the "testing approaches" question
   ... I'll send specific suggestions/questions to www-qa-wg

   dave: I'll have comments if it gets related to category of
   specifications
   ... it may be outmoded by the refinements we've gone through

   Next teleconf: next week

Summary of Action Items

   [NEW] ACTION: karl to give a better outline of the issue and to move
   forward the discussion on umbrella specs [recorded in
   [13]http://www.w3.org/2005/05/16-qa-minutes.html#action01]
-- 
Dominique Hazaël-Massieux - http://www.w3.org/People/Dom/
W3C/ERCIM
mailto:dom@w3.org