Re: face to face meeting host offers for the HTML WG?

On 20/03/2007 22:04, Chris Wilson wrote:

>> WHAT ?!? Chris, did you read my message before waking up or after ???
>> </Daniel state="really shocked">
> 
> Perhaps before, then.  I got a little upset because I felt like you were
> taking something out on me ("a big joke"), and you have objected at
> length previously to me being chair before (yes, I understand that was
> on an affiliation basis not a personal objection).  I should not have
> turned that in to a personal attack.  I apologize.

Accepted, thanks.

> I hope that, as Maciej suggested, we can all assume good faith in
> Microsoft's participation in this WG.  It offends me on a personal level
> when I feel others are not assuming good faith on my part, particularly
> with respect to my involvement in this WG, as it is a huge
> responsibility and commitment.  Given our past rounds on getting an HTML
> charter we could agree on, I felt like you were accusing me of being
> disingenuous, when I am doing the best I can to jump through the

No, never. You did not read well, or read too fast. I would never have
joined this group without having faith in the individual Chris Wilson
and I am surprised to have to repeat it since you know I am not the kind
of person saying that in public and thinking something else in private.

> appropriate hoops to work on this in good faith.
> 
> You should recognize - without me telling you - that a company with as
> large a patent portfolio as Microsoft's, sued as often as Microsoft is,
> will have a process for approving any standards participation that
> carries patent responsibilities, and it will take some amount of time.
> I have not sent out updates on my status because there isn't much to
> tell that will be helpful - if you wanted more information, you could
> have asked me, rather than sounding like you assume I'm playing a big

It's not "you" and "me". It's 150 persons and several orgs waiting for
your own organization, and to paraphrase your own prose, we should not
have to tell Microsoft that chairing a WG gives rights AND duties.
W3C Members were given 7 days only to approve the final WG charter,
WHATWG was not asked to approve at all because of the "urgency", and now
Microsoft needs several weeks to internally approve that. This lack of
balance is not normal, and the group currently suffers from that. That's
all I said.

> joke on the WG.  You don't need to ask for a needle - I am hurrying as
> fast as I can.  If you want to know status, or if I'm blocking something
> during that time, sending me an email will get a response.  If you are
> concerned that I am blocking something, please, email me.

No concern of that kind. My only concern is about your Legal Department,
but hey Legal departments are about the same everywhere and I got my own
lot of problems with AOL's ;-)

> Certainly WRT the FTF planning, I should not be a blocking factor, and I
> had no idea you considered input from me such a thing until Dan
> forwarded me your mail this morning.  My first email should have
> unblocked FTF planning - if the group would prefer something hosted in
> Redmond, I'm happy to make that happen, but I'm every bit as happy to
> show up wherever else would work out better for the maximum number of
> people, except the two weeks in June I mentioned (12th-26th) when I am
> unavailable.  I did not have a "proposal" to link to - I had offered to
> Dan that Microsoft could pay to host a FTF meeting if no one else wanted
> to offer first, but I really don't have a particular desire one way or
> another.  I know the WG meetings can be costly to host, but I also know
> that travel costs were an expressed concern from many members as well.
> I'd suggested to Dan that I know a number of members will be at XTech,
> so it might be a good co-location opportunity.  You shouldn't be waiting
> on Microsoft for this.  Maciej, I heard your comment about participants
> being hesitant to proceed without one of the co-chairs being present -
> on the topic of FTF, I've said everything important.

Since you're cc:ed on all this thread, I would like to have your opinion
on this : the mailing-list already started discussing technical items.
This seems to me far too early in time since we don't even know how the 
work of this WG is to be organized. From my POV, and even if some
points are valid and interesting, it's somehow bloating the list.
Keeps us active, ok, but it's not really the right time for technical
stuff, there's nothing we can do with it.
If you agree on that, please Dan and you send us your thoughts on how
we're going to start and what we're going to do first. You're not a
co-chair YET and cannot do that ? Fine, then do that AS IF you had a
co-chair hat on, and call that a brainstorm session, the WG just
pinging your _personal_ expertise on that topic. Use a personal email
if your @microsoft.com is a problem, and let's move forward, that's
feasible since we discuss only organizational subjects and not technical
ones possibly implying patent issues. Right ?

</Daniel>

Received on Wednesday, 21 March 2007 02:44:35 UTC