Re: spec development process was: vendor prefixing

Yehuda Katz
(ph) 718.877.1325


On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 8:14 AM, Sylvain Galineau <sylvaing@microsoft.com>wrote:

>
> [hsivonen:]
> >
> > On Sun, Nov 20, 2011 at 2:08 AM, Ojan Vafai <ojan@chromium.org> wrote:
> > > Give it a version number and call it a CR.
> >
> > I think it's not a good idea to continue to couple unprefixing with CR.
> > There's now momentum to unprefix certain properties. Changing the
> > discussion from something concrete and actionable (whether to unprefix
> > them) to readjusting when to enter CR risks losing that momentum, because
> > it's harder to change the W3C Process than it is to change the prefixing
> > policy or to make ad hoc exceptions to the prefixing policy.
> >
> > The CR stage in the W3C Process is currently based on fiction (the notion
> > that implementations start when the spec enters CR).
>
> Of the things that puzzle me in the process, the claim that CR is a 'call
> to implementation' ranks way up the list. If you reach CR with zero
> implementation experience the CR status of your spec is simply not
> meaningful:
> the odds of it not going back to WD upon first contact with real code are
> extremely
> low vs. a spec that reaches CR on the back of several prefixed
> implementations,
> author feedback etc.
>

Agreed. Is it normally the case the implementors even wait for CR before
implementing, or is the entire concept a total fiction?


>
> But this puzzlement is also a consequence of my assuming as a goal that CR
> should
> be entered once since it also relates to test suite production, dropping
> prefixes
> based on IRs etc i.e. a number of final steps on the way to PR and REC.
>
> It could simply be that CR is overloaded with conflicting intents.
>
>