media fragments (Re: Draft minutes from 2012-05-03 TAG telcon)

From the recent minutes:

>   masinter: do we need to push back on media fragments group?
>   ... at the web conference, I talked to Thomas, and they were
>   saying it was a mistake when the group was chartered
>   ... we have a draft from a WG that the folks from the IETF
>   thought was laughable
>   ... there's a disconnect there

I object against finding incomplete versions of private hallway conversations relayed in TAG meetings without permission or the courtesy of an invitation to the meeting.  I further object against having incomplete versions of private hallway conversations relayed in publicly visible draft minutes, without as much courtesy as an explicit CC.  If the TAG believes that it is entitled to the courtesy of having its draft minutes not being forwarded to public mailing lists elsewhere, then I would suggest that the TAG and its members afford a similar degree of courtesy to others they interact with.

Absent that courtesy, frank and open conversations with TAG members become impossible.


To put this snippet (and the discussion at the Web conference) in context, I recommend a look at the charter of the media fragments WG:

> The mission of the Media Fragments Working Group, part of the Video in the Web Activity, is to address temporal and spatial media fragments in the Web using Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI)

	-- http://www.w3.org/2008/01/media-fragments-wg.html

In the conversation at WWW 2012, I took Larry's critique of media fragments to be against a W3C working group defining semantics for fragment identifiers.  I pointed out that that was the very purpose of this working group, and said that if people thought this basic approach was a mistake, then that would have been a point to discuss at chartering time, not at PR time.


There's a separate question what the exact coordination needs are at this point, how they are best dealt with, and what communication needs to go back to the IETF.   As W3C liaison to the IETF, I re-iterate my request that TAG members put coordination issues on the agenda of W3C/IETF liaison meetings, where these belong.  Interfering in the work of the liaisons is not helpful.

Further, I will note that the overall relationship between W3C and IETF is not helped by the liberal use of terms like "laughable" in characterizing widely-implemented technical work or its reception.

Received on Saturday, 5 May 2012 08:24:51 UTC