Re: [CSS2] Proposed process for maintaining CSS2

> On Feb 2, 2017, at 13:30, Liam R. E. Quin <liam@w3.org> wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 2017-02-02 at 03:54 +0000, Alan Stearns wrote:
>>> On Feb 1, 2017, at 5:18 PM, Liam R. E. Quin <liam@w3.org> wrote:
>>> 
> [...]
>> This is the method we want to use in the proposal below for those
>> changes we know are ready for a quick CR. When we're not sure which
>> changes will survive review and/or be adopted and testable, the
>> problem is that the REC gets stuck in a republished CR cycle. I don't
>> think it's good to take a REC back to CR for changes that haven't yet
>> been vetted.
> 
> To be clear, there's no question of "taking a rec back to cr" at all.
> 
> The Recommendation stays as a recommendation unless the WG decides to
> rescind it. You just get a time when there's a Rec and *also* a
> proposed edited rec (or whatever) on /TR.
> 
> If you want people to review the changes and comment you have to accept
> that yes, they might want changes that result in a republished CR, but
> this isn't harder than republishing a working draft these days -
> there's no transition call to go through or anything.
> 
> Under that process we'd presumably end up with CSS 2.2 Second Edition.

We could do that, but the problem is that we kind of know for sure that
some edits aren't ready. Presumably they will be eventually, but that could
take a fairly long time.

In the meanwhile we'll have an outdated REC, and a not-a-REC document with
some REC quality changes, and some uncertain changes. While the end result
would be the same, the long transition period would leave us with no good
way to point people to a document that is "CSS2, all the things we're sure
about".

The proposed process is an attempt at having the ability to get the fully baked
changes to graduate to REC while the rest is still cooking.

From an editorial point of view, we could probably just have an ED with everything,
an ED with just the things we know are good enough for REC already, and cycle via
CR/PR/REC on based on that second ED. The only problem that this leaves us is
that there would not be any document on w3.org that would reflect the latest thinking
on CSS2. The point of the Note was to have that space on w3.org where we could call
for reviews. Partly because the process calls for it, partly because reviews are good.

This Note would effectively be a working draft in the plain english sense, as it's the
draft we work with, but it would not be a Working Draft in the Process sense,
as it is not a document we intend to move along the REC track. We intent to cherry
pick things from it, and put them into another document, that one being intended to
move on the REC track.

I think the workflow we discussed in Seattle is somewhat unusual, but seems to be about
as good as it gets with the current tools and Process, so I think we should go ahead with
it.

At the same time, it is a bit odd, and living-standard / REC-track document pairs
face the same issues, so it would be good for the AB to look into streamlining that.

— Florian

Received on Thursday, 2 February 2017 05:00:17 UTC