Re: XForms Simplified Forms Syntax Review Needed

It remains unclear *to me*.
As explained, it remains unclear *because* the vote preempts the work of a 
task force both groups were obligated by charter to form to *work 
together* toward a solution.

So, you held a vote in which the working group said it did not want to do 
what it is chartered to do, so are you saying that the vote means the HTML 
WG should be dissolved?
That's a bit of hyperbole, but it illustrates what I think is the 
analogous hyperbole of suggesting that the task force be dissolved because 
some within it do not even want to consider the notion that a more 
technically precise approach might actually still align with their HTML WG 
goals.  Extremism obstructs meaningful collaboration.  Meaningful 
collaboration obstructs extremism.

John M. Boyer, Ph.D.
Senior Technical Staff Member
Lotus Forms Architect and Researcher
Chair, W3C Forms Working Group
Workplace, Portal and Collaboration Software
IBM Victoria Software Lab
E-Mail: boyerj@ca.ibm.com 

Blog: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/JohnBoyer
Blog RSS feed: 
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/rss/JohnBoyer?flavor=rssdw





"Michael(tm) Smith" <mike@w3.org> 
04/02/2008 09:03 PM

To
John Boyer/CanWest/IBM@IBMCA
cc
Anne van Kesteren <annevk@opera.com>, chris.wilson@microsoft.com, 
connolly@w3.org, "Gregory J. Rosmaita" <oedipus@hicom.net>, Forms WG 
<public-forms@w3.org>, public-forms-tf@w3.org, steven@w3.org
Subject
Re: XForms Simplified Forms Syntax Review Needed






John Boyer <boyerj@ca.ibm.com>, 2008-04-02 20:01 -0700:

> It remains unclear why that vote was taken since it preempts the 
> collaborative work of the task force required in both WG charters.

As the team contact that monitored the vote and the discussion
that led up to it, it doesn't seem accurate to me to that say it
remains unclear why that vote was taken. The reason for it being
taken is a matter of record.

And note that the full text of the question put to vote was this:

  The deliverables section of our charter calls for "A language
  evolved from HTML4 for describing the semantics of documents and
  applications on the World Wide Web". On 9 Apr 2007, Mozilla
  Foundation, Opera Software ASA, and Apple Inc., who claim
  copyright on HTML5 and WF2, offered a Proposal to Adopt HTML5. 

  Shall we adopt these documents as our basis for review?

  A "yes" response indicates a willingness to use these documents
  as the basis for discussion with the editors and the WG going
  forward. It does not constitute endorsement of the entire
  feature set specified in these documents, nor does it indicate
  that you feel that the documents in their present state should
  become a W3C Recommendation or even a W3C Working Draft.

Note especially the language about "basis for review".

> Gregory can formally object at any point, and the HTML WG can reopen the 

> issue at the discretion of the chairs

Gregory voted No to the original question -- as did you and
others. The chairs reviewed those votes and accompanying comments
and ultimately decided that the vote carried (for the record, the
numbers were: yes: 88, no: 4, concur: 7, abstain: 3).

So at this point, if Gregory or somebody else were to make a
formal objection that restated the comments already on record that
he submitted along with his vote, that would certainly not seem to
be a legitimate basis for reopening any discussion of the decision.

> if there is some new technical information, such as "the Forms
> WG has been working on a streamlined version of XForms markup
> that has a number of properties we have expressed are important
> to us, so maybe we should have a look at it to see how we can
> align whatever we have in our minds up to know with it."

That would not seem to me at least to be new technical information.
It would instead be a new (or alternative) proposal -- a proposal
in addition to the proposal we had already agreed to review.

A decision to consider review of that new proposal would be up for
the group to decide, but it does not affect the standing decision
on record to accept that WF2 proposal as the basis for review.

> This is the type of coordination and collaboration that would allow 
> rationalization of whatever we have in XForms with whatever there is in 
> WF2.  There are things in WF2 that obviously should be replaced by 
things 
> in the XForms simplified syntax, just as there are quite a number of 
> things we are doing both to our markup and to the underlying processing 
> model to enable streamlined "on the glass" authoring.

That all sounds to me like exactly what the joint Forms Task Force
should do -- within the framework of reviewing and commenting on
the existing WF2 proposal that was accepted as the initial basis
for such review.

> We're trying to move closer to the compromised land... will you?

I'm struggling to find a tactful way to say that I wish we could
all make an effort to omit friendly little rhetorical pokes in the
eye like that from our discussions...

  --Mike