Re: Marathon crank of WebFormsA; should be ready for FPWD decision this week

Hi Raman,

I appreciate where you're coming from, Raman.  If I may summarize, you 
believe the spec is an excellent piece of work but that it is the naming 
which may cause problems due to the preexisting web forms 2.0 
specification.

I agree there is less than an ideal circumstance at play here, though I 
maintain that it is possible to get the whole problem turned around and 
that, if we do manage to do so, then the "WebFormsA" spec will indeed be 
appropriately named as it will represent a merge of the ideation of Web 
Forms 2.0 and the architecture of XForms.  It is by no means certain that 
we would even get this short name approved, but one goal I have for this 
name is that, if we get it approved, it will be a significant message that 
will light the path of how to consolidate our efforts with those of HTML5.

Of course, this is not the only reason.  I would reiterate that we are 
appropriately naming the specification, modulo what other names may have 
been given to other specs in the past.  The name is actually important to 
communicating to the wider community what technical space we are 
addressing with this specification and how it relates to the charter 
mission and deliverables of the group.  We have to not only satisfy our 
charter, but be seen doing so.  Moreover, we need to make the rubber meet 
the road by delivering this technology across the important web browsers, 
which is of course what it takes to get from working draft to proposed 
recommendation.  This will drive interest and adoption from the wider web 
community, which will come full circle with helping us to consolidate our 
efforts with those of the HTML5 group.

In other words, while I quite agree with you that this approach is not 
risk-free, I also believe it is the path that has the best chance of 
succeeding on all W3C objectives, from on-ramping web authors to XForms 
through driving broader adoption of our technology, all the way to making 
it possible for the Forms WG to work together with the HTML5 group to lead 
the web to its full potential.

In the end, though, the working group does still have to resolve to 
publish this specification as a FPWD, and while I have done my best to 
advocate for the "WebFormsA" path, there are other names too, and if the 
end result is that the working group as a whole is persuaded to adopt 
another name, then the record will still reflect that I did my best to 
advocate a path I believed in, and I'll still do my part to make the best 
out of any outcome.

So, I hope we will be able to get a resolution to go to FPWD this week or 
at the latest next week.  I will ask the group to decide this week, but we 
may have a delay due to further technical considerations.  I can raise the 
naming issue again as part of the discussion.  Hopefully, when the working 
group resolves to request FPWD, the name choice will actually be the best 
choice, whichever name it is. 

Meanwhile, I would like to ask you to please continue to consider my 
advocacy above for the WebFormsA name; maybe it will be enough to change 
your mind, but I am hoping that at least you will have some additional 
optimism about the possibility for a positive outcome even if the current 
name is retained the FPWD request.

And no matter what, you have my best regards.

John M. Boyer, Ph.D.
STSM, Interactive Documents and Web 2.0 Applications
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





From:
"T.V Raman" <raman@google.com>
To:
John Boyer/CanWest/IBM@IBMCA
Cc:
public-forms@w3.org
Date:
11/10/2008 09:10 AM
Subject:
Marathon crank of WebFormsA; should be ready for FPWD decision this week



Just a heads-up that I'll  formally object to the name  that
John 
has placed on this spec.

John Boyer writes:

-- 
Best Regards,
--raman

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