Re: Publishing a new draft (HTML5+RDFa)

Manu Sporny wrote:
> 
>> Second, for a new document to be published as a Working Draft, Sam has
>> asked for at least three independent supporters. I don't think we've
>> done that assessment for either of the documents you cite.
> 
> I don't know what that assessment would consist of, but we might want to
> count the number of people taking part in the conversation on the RDFa
> mailing list regarding HTML5+RDFa, since we're actively discussing
> HTML5+RDFa issues on that mailing list right now. Or we could do a poll.

I'm concerned whenever I see a group of people voting as a block, be it 
a group of people that work for a single vendor, are in the same group 
or task force.  The spirit of wanting three independent supporters is 
more met by, say Philip+Manu (even though that is only two!) then the 
current list of authors of the draft.  And I prefer support to be 
something tangible, though it can be as simple as a single bug report. 
Jonas, in a separate reply, indicated that he supported the idea of 
letting people pursue and publish their ideas... while that's something 
I agree with, that's not the type of support that means much to me in 
how I evaluate whether or not the a specific work product is something 
that I would consider a product of the Working Group.

Take a look at the list of acknowledgments in Ian's document.  That's 
more the spirit of what I am look for.  It is not a list of supporters 
by any means, but it is a list of people who consider the work at least 
relevant enough to comment constructively on.

> How was this done for the current HTML5 draft? A poll?

http://www.w3.org/html/wg/tracker/issues/19
http://www.w3.org/2002/09/wbs/40318/wd-html5-spec/

In a non-contentious environment, the above wouldn't be necessary.  We 
clearly aren't in such an environment.  I would have thought that simply 
publishing a new draft of the specification that the group had already 
approved would have been something we could have done via lazy 
consensus, but clearly I was wrong.

>> And finally, I don't think the author of either of the alternative
>> drafts has stated their readiness to publish a First Public Working
>> Draft yet.
> 
> There are still some things that are being actively discussed on the
> RDFa mailing list regarding HTML family issues (HTML5 is one of those
> languages), but the HTML5+RDFa FPWD could be readied in a very short
> time, if needed.

I have to believe that what is motivating Larry is a desire to give 
efforts like yours more visibility.  Unfortunately, bringing such of for 
a vote prematurely is often the best way to kill such efforts.

>> While I'm sure all of the above obstacles can be overcome, I don't think
>> we should miss our heartbeat requirement while waiting to deal with them.
> 
> I agree with Maciej, I don't think we should couple Ian's HTML5 WD, the
> HTML5+RDFa WD, and Mike's document together. No idea what that does to
> the W3C Process, but building heartbeat dependencies between these
> alternate specs seems like it may get complicated as the number of
> alternate specifications grow.

And entirely unnecessary.

> If however, others would like to accelerate the HTML5+RDFa draft being
> published sooner than later, I can change my priorities to have it ready
> in a couple of days.

My suggestion is that we decouple the ideas of a simple republishing of 
the existing draft and the important first step of FPWD of your draft. 
Lets proceed with the first (possibly over some people's objections) and 
then lets proceed with your draft when you feel the time is right.

- Sam Ruby

Received on Thursday, 30 July 2009 04:41:40 UTC