Participation Needed in SVG WG (was: New SVG WG Charter)

Hi, Amelia–

Yes, I agree with you that we need more active participation from more 
people, including browser vendors and other implementers, especially as 
we are headed into our testing phase.

We'd also welcome Invited Experts in the SVG WG, especially those who 
want to help promote interoperability by helping write tests and file bugs.

I don't think this is a flaw in the charter itself… I think the charter 
is correct in saying we need at least 5–6 active participants, because 
as we've shown recently, having less than that is unsustainable and puts 
too much of a burden on those who are participating.

So, I don't plan to change this section of the charter; instead, I plan 
to step up efforts to get new participation from W3C members and new 
volunteers.

If you or anyone you know is interested in helping move SVG forward, 
please spread the word that we're looking for new SVG WG Invited Experts.

Thanks!
Doug

On 9/13/16 1:15 PM, Amelia Bellamy-Royds wrote:
> *Participation Commitments*
>
> Re Doug's draft charter for the SVG WG 2016/2017. [1]
>
> Section 4 of the new draft charter states
>
>     To be successful, this Working Group is expected to have 6 or more
>     active participants for its duration, including representatives from
>     the key implementors of this specification, and active Editors and
>     Test Leads for each specification. The Chairs, specification
>     Editors, and Test Leads are expected to contribute half of a day per
>     week towards the Working Group. There is no minimum requirement for
>     other Participants.
>
>
> We really need commitments from member organizations, particularly user
> agent and authoring tool implementors, to support the test suite
> development, in coordination with active work on building SVG 2
> implementations.  A half-day per week for editors and testing leads is a
> very low bar considering how much work needs to be done, but I'm still
> not convinced it will be met.
>
> For comparison, the equivalent section of the existing charter is [2]
>
>     To be successful, The group is expected to have 7 or more active
>     participants for its duration. Effective participation is expected
>     to consume one work day per week for each participant; two days per
>     week for editors. The group allocates also the necessary resources
>     for building Test Suites.
>
>
> For the past 7 months, the group was nowhere near meeting this success
> criteria.  Nikos has put in a lot of time to make up for that, but it is
> not reasonable to expect Canon/CISRA to continue that level of support
> when their business interest in SVG is negligible.  Tavmjong & I have
> invested huge amounts of unpaid volunteer work, but I for one cannot
> afford to do that & have already let the other active editors know that
> I will not be doing so in the future.  Meanwhile, the W3C has already
> cut Doug's hours because of a lack of activity & involvement from member
> organizations.
>
> If other changes to the charter or work processes could help increase
> involvement (e.g., having fewer, longer telcons, having more or fewer
> face to face meetings, defining more modularized deliverables that can
> be delegated to specific people/organizations), this would be the time
> to discuss that.
>
> I'd also strongly encourage member reps to consider & discuss within
> their companies, whether they as individuals are the best contributors
> to this group.  Over the past year, there are a few implementers (who
> work for member orgs or contribute to their open source software) who
> have been active on the GitHub issue discussion or mailing list, but who
> aren't the official SVG WG reps.  Meanwhile, the official reps from
> those same orgs have not been active at all.
>
> [1]: _https://w3c.github.io/charter-drafts/svg-2016.html#participation_
>
> [2]: https://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/2014/new-charter#participation
>

Received on Wednesday, 14 September 2016 22:13:03 UTC