Re: Draft XG Charter

Hi Olle, thoughts below:

Olle Olsson wrote:
> 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.
I tend to agree with you, although I think that this issue will continue
to come up.  However as long as we are aware of it, we can plan for it
while trying to separate it as much as possible from the technical
aspects.  I liked Kristin's approach of emphasising functional roles,
which seems to me to be a very good way of dealing with this.
> 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.
I agree completely, but my question is really about who those
stakeholders are, because I think that the international and domestic
agencies are different groups that function in different ways.  As an
example, the American Red Cross works completely differently in the
context of an IFRC response than it does domestically - it's almost a
different organisation.

> 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.
It's not so much issues originating in political structures, but
politics originating in institutional structures that we need to be
aware of.

cheers

Paul C

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Received on Saturday, 11 August 2007 12:37:54 UTC