Re: HTML plan review at upcoming AB

On Sat, Feb 14, 2015 at 12:35 PM, Roy T. Fielding <fielding@gbiv.com> wrote:
> On Feb 13, 2015, at 12:39 PM, Sam Ruby wrote:
>> On 02/13/2015 12:59 PM, Roy T. Fielding wrote:
>>> On Feb 5, 2015, at 12:58 PM, Sam Ruby wrote:
>>>
>>>> From the plan review itself:
>>>>
>>>>> This is work in progress. It has only been looked at by Sam, Paul,
>>>>> PLH, and Robin. This document has no official status and was simply
>>>>> produced in response to a request from the AB. Some elements of this
>>>>> plan have been rejected previously and could undergo substantial
>>>>> changes before coming into effect.
>>>>
>>>> Full plan can be found here:
>>>>
>>>>  http://darobin.github.io/after5/html-plan.html
>>>
>>> I believe it is inappropriate to enshrine any exclusive group as the
>>> gateway for what goes into HTML, whether that group is a small set of
>>> companies that happen to dominate current browser marketshare, or a
>>> small set of individuals that happen to dominate an IRC club.
>>
>> Quote from the plan:
>>
>> "We would be willing to entertain discussions of alternatives, but only if such proposals include details describing how the both financial and technical aspects will be addressed."
>
> There are no financial aspects.  W3C members already pay sufficiently to
> support an editor, and the other roles are traditionally appointed to
> volunteers.
>
> The technical aspects involve the same free tools already in use today.
>
>>> Furthermore, I see no reason to assign that role to the WHATWG.
>>> Triage tends to be dominated by whomever does the work, regardless of
>>> their role or official title, with the exception of decisions that have
>>> been made by the working group.
>>>
>>> If the intent of this process is to continue adhering to the decisions
>>> made by the working group, and to allow the working group to override
>>> any triage when it chooses to do so, then any individual(s) can take on
>>> the role of triage without making it separate from the WG.  There is
>>> no need to assign that role to some other group even if only people in
>>> that group are willing to do the work.
>>
>> Quote from the plan:
>>
>> "Over the past few years HTML-related bugs have been filed in both the WHATWG and the HTML WG. This duplication is at best a waste of effort and at worst induces confusion on its own."
>
> Then stop looking at the WHATWG bug tracker.  You are enabling a problem
> that didn't need to exist in the first place.
>
>>> OTOH, if the intent of this plan is to replace or reduce decisions
>>> made by this group to only those deemed acceptable in triage, then
>>> consider this an objection to that plan.  That would be nothing more
>>> than a rubber-stamp process.  I would rather put an end to the W3C
>>> than participate in such an effort.
>>
>> The W3C is bigger than HTML.
>>
>> If you are suggesting closing down the HTML WG, that's operationally indistinguishable from delegating that work to the WHATWG, which is something you object to.
>
> No, if the W3C did not exist then other standards organizations (existing
> or new) would step up to fill the gaps, just as the W3C stepped up when it
> took HTML away from the IETF.

If you read up recent history, you will find that that's exactly what
the WHATWG did - the W3C abandoned HTML and the WHATWG picked it up.

> Preferably, this time it will be some
> organization that reflects all of the implementors of Web protocols,
> rather than just the few that WHATWG cares about.

Nobody is excluded from the WHATWG, from what I can tell. It has a
different way of making decisions to other standards-developing
organisations, but it has not excluded any organisations from
contributing. I'm a firm believer in the W3C, but right now, if
somebody wanted to contribute something, I'm not even sure where to
send them - at the W3C from what I can see, nobody is continuing work
on the HTML spec (the last editor's update was in November
http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/), while the WHATWG spec
continues to get updated.


> Obviously, ending the W3C isn't my first choice.  I would prefer it if
> this group simply stopped being so stupendously arrogant, consider
> carefully the poor quality of the specs it has developed so far, and
> adopt a W3C process that is not an absurd special-case.
>
> I personally think the WHATWG would have imploded years ago if it were
> not for the ridiculous ways that this group has been prevented from doing
> anything that might be deemed interesting.  Let the editors so some
> original work, on their own or at the behest of WG decisions, and maybe
> the consensus process will take care of itself.

Consensus is shown by the implementation of browsers, no matter what
processes the W3C or the WHATWG provide for what goes into the spec.
Both groups have had to make amends to the spec over the years based
on what browsers had actually implemented after the spec was
developed. I think you may be over-estimating the power that an editor
has.

Regards,
Silvia.

Received on Sunday, 15 February 2015 07:54:43 UTC