Re: formal objection to one vendor/one vote

On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 9:06 AM, David Singer<singer@apple.com> wrote:
> Shelley
>
> I think you are missing something rather fundamental.  We are in working
> drafts at the moment, and there have not been any 'votes'. We put into
> working drafts (a) our best ideas of the technology as it is developing, so
> we can critique, experiment with, and build upon it - for example, the
> markup of the <video> element; and (b) our consensus, where we have it, on
> other issues.
>


PS, actually there has been votes. Sam just pointed out to me the
Canvas vote, and we're about to vote on Summary. So yes, we are voting
now.

What's happening, too, is that the browser companies aren't waiting
for last call, they're rushing ahead implementing what's in the spec
now. Sure, it's on their head if the spec changes, but them
implementing aspects now make that much more difficult to question and
contest later. It's hard enough to contest even when Ian just puts
text into the spec.

So questioning the spec, now, is actually not only appropriate, it's
imperative.

> Consensus, by the way, in most standards organizations, is defined as the
> lack of sustained objection (by anyone).
>
> We don't *need* to decide on mandatory, recommended, optional, or to-avoid
> codecs until quite late in the process.  It doesn't affect our understanding
> of the spec. or development of it, or building on it.  The question can
> remain quite easily open, if it needs to.
>
> I think it would be a much better use of my time, your time, and everyone
> else's, probably, if we used our time to try to reach consensus, rather than
> complaining about something that has not happened.  We haven't voted.  Where
> we are is at a failure to reach consensus, which indeed later in the process
> might cause a formal vote.  I hope we can reach consensus instead; perhaps
> you do too.

I do understand, and I know I'm going against the flow here. And I
apologize for so many emails, when you're all busy.

But you know, the only time I see consensus seems to be when people
are worn down, or there was little or no disagreement in the first
place. That's not consensus, that's a game of King of the HIll.

Sam is checking the viability of my objection. He may come back and
say that it's outside of the parameters of a W3C working group. In
that case, I will have to reserve my objections for a later time, and
for each individual item, especially those based on one vendor/one
vote.

I just assumed others would be as concerned as I am, once made aware
of the one vendor/one vote.


> --
> David Singer
> Multimedia Standards, Apple Inc.
>

Shelley

Received on Wednesday, 8 July 2009 16:42:13 UTC