Re: volunteering for change proposal for issue 117

Laura Carlson wrote:
> Hi Shelley,
>
>   
>>> What recourse do non-members have then if they are unsatisfied with a
>>> bug resolution? Should they file formal objections?
>>>       
>> The powers-that-be have to respond, of course, but the impression I
>> received is this is the only option. That's fair. If the only patent
>> policy is associated with membership, then I can more than understand.
>>
>> Going to be a bit of a mess when this thing goes for last call, though.
>>     
>
> According to the HTML5 Formal Objection Wiki Page [1] , "the first
> time that the Director reviews Formal Objections is in the request
> from the Working Group to advance to Candidate Recommendation" not at
> Last Call.
>   

I imagine we'll be having a rather lengthy time period for a Call for 
Implementations. A significant portion of HTML5 has not been implemented 
by any browser. Point of fact, many of the formal objections I'd planned 
on raising are somewhat dependent on what happens within the Call for 
Implementations. Some of the items I submitted change proposals on may 
end up being dropped, as at-risk features during this time.

We're already seeing problems popping up with just the recent 
discussions related to hidden, details, and longdesc. Implementation 
conflicts, bad disconnects, and inconsistencies...implementation drives 
out a lot of problems. And this is the real issue: we're not seeing a 
lot of implementation experience with a great deal of HTML5. Only Opera 
has made a token shot at the new form input types. Firefox hasn't even 
begun implementation of many HTML5 features. Safari's implementation has 
been more focused on iPhone stuff. Chrome jumps all over the place, 
still trying to play catch up with the other browsers.  IE, well, IE9 
isn't implemented in Windows XP, and from what I can see, most of my 
Windows users are still using Windows XP. Seriously, it's a real mess.

I don't even plan on filing any formal objection until we see what 
happens in the implementation phase. And I don't expect this until next 
year, at the current rates. The group will have to be re-chartered, first.

My purpose in wanting to file change proposals isn't that I expected any 
of them to succeed--past decisions on the part of the co-chairs tend to 
corroborate my opinion they would all fail. In the process, though, we 
can be collecting solid rationales, both for and against any change. The 
editor's rationales for his decisions are weak, almost non-existent. 
Part of the reason for this is that he is pulled into too many 
directions, and isn't maintaining a consistent and viable schedule for 
bug responses. Another part is that there is too much work for one 
person, but the group stubbornly persists in pretending this isn't a 
problem. Regardless, we have nothing we can use as a measure of success 
for the editor decisions, based on what he appends to the bugs.

But dumping all of this stuff when advancing to candidate recommendation 
is going to be bad. Either the Director is going to just blow the stuff 
off, which may not be in the best interest of all web communities 
dependent on HTML. Or the spec is going to end up pretty hacked up. 
Neither of these actions are going to be good for HTML5.

What a mess.

Regardless of future problems, if my only option for filing change 
proposals is to re-join the group, then such is life.
> Best Regards,
> Laura
>
> [1] http://www.w3.org/html/wg/wiki/FormalObjection
>
>   

Regards

Shelley

Received on Thursday, 26 August 2010 14:28:48 UTC