Re: Draft XG Charter

Hi all,

This discussion has put politics on the table. This gives me an uneasy 
feeling. For work within W3C to succeed, one should keep politics at 
arms-length distance. For two reasons; firstly, because W3C should be 
concerned with interoperability standards, that  are as independent as 
possible of the political structure of the ecosystem in which the 
standards can be used. Secondly, letting political structures creep into 
the form and content of the work (of an XG, or whatever) may cause work 
to grind to a halt, when politics cause tensions  between participating 
partners and/or stakeholders.

So for me, the question is how the XG should be scoped and focused so 
that political issues largely become non-issues w.r.t. technical work to 
be performed.

As has been mentioned, in practice there are many issues that, at the 
end of the day, must be dealt with -- natural language, organizational 
structures, mission responsibility and authority, etc. A constraining 
factor is also the kinds of standards and technologies that are already 
in place. It was mentioned that most information models/representation 
formats out there are not free, which means that there are actors that 
regard these things as *their* property, and do not want to throw them 
away (to the garbage bin, or to the rest of the worlds, or ...).

How far can we go by talking about a basic technical framework for 
interoperability (formats and protocols)? A framework that enables 
interoperation between parties/stakeholders in whatever role they happen 
to be. A framework that is *politically* and *organizationally* 
*agnostic*. A framework that real stakeholders can find attractive, 
because it does not pose a threat to their existence.

These remarks are prompted by my experience of actors in the emergency / 
crisis management sector in Sweden. There is, at the national level, an 
on-going power struggle. They are always reluctant when they see some 
approach (technical or organizational) that may erode their autonomy. 
This also holds for international missions, even though, in these days 
at least, such missions are configured on a case-specific basis, and 
hence participation poses no long-term threat to the participating 
individual organizations.

So, what I am saying is that (1) I would like to keep all issues 
originating in political structures out of the XG, and at the same time 
(2) the work of the XG must be defined with an awareness of the 
political issues in the field, so that important parties see the XG as 
an opportunity, not a threat.

regards,

/olle


paola.dimaio@gmail.com wrote:
> Paul -
>
> I think the point  is worth elaborating
> .......
>
>
> Paola Di Maio
>
>
>   

-- 
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Olle Olsson   olleo@sics.se   Tel: +46 8 633 15 19  Fax: +46 8 751 72 30
	[Svenska W3C-kontoret: olleo@w3.org]
SICS [Swedish Institute of Computer Science]
Box 1263
SE - 164 29 Kista
Sweden
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Received on Thursday, 9 August 2007 14:15:56 UTC