Re: ACTION-335: Fw: Comments on "WICD Full/Mobile 1.0"

On May 4, 2006, at 10:57 AM, Chris Lilley wrote:

>
> On Thursday, May 4, 2006, 7:45:37 PM, Bjoern wrote:
>
> BH> * Kevin E Kelly wrote:
>>> [...]
>
> BH> I did not see a response from the Working Group to my earlier  
> message
>
> BH>   http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-cdf/2006Mar/0047
>
> BH> and it is still unclear to me whether
>
> BH>   * the Working Group formally addressed all comments before  
> publishing
> BH>     the four last call announcements
>
> I wonder if you could point to to the specific place in the Process
> document that requires a Working Group to respond to all comments on a
> previous Last Call, as opposed to saying that there have been many
> changes as a result of comments and starting a new Last call?  This is
> particularly important in the case where a specification has been
> refactored into multiple specifications, or otherwise been subject to
> major changes in structure.

Section 7.3 <http://www.w3.org/2005/10/Process-20051014/tr.html#doc- 
reviews>

"A document receives review from the moment it is first published.  
Starting with the First Public Working Draft until the start of a  
Last Call review, a Working Group should formally address any  
substantive review comment about a technical report and should do so  
in a timely manner."

While "should" does not indicate a mandatory requirement, RFC2119,  
cited as a reference, says:

"3. SHOULD   This word, or the adjective "RECOMMENDED", mean that there
    may exist valid reasons in particular circumstances to ignore a
    particular item, but the full implications must be understood and
    carefully weighed before choosing a different course."

The WG did not state any reasons for failing to address the majority  
of the working draft comments before proceeding to Last Call. If you  
read Bjoern's original link, you will see he cited this same clause  
of the process document, and listed some replies to working draft  
comments where the WG said a response was forthcoming, but no  
substantive response can be found in the archives (so presumably  
there wasn't one).

One example of such a comment is:

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-cdf/2005Aug/0003.html

As far as I can tell, this comment has not been formally addressed in  
the now almost 9 months since it was submitted. Or at least there is  
no archived record of this. This is only one of many examples. I  
don't think a general statement that lots of changes have been made  
satisfies the requirement to formally address substantive review  
comments.

Regards,
Maciej

P.S. Note that to advance to CR the "should" becomes a "must".

Received on Thursday, 4 May 2006 19:07:09 UTC