RE: minutes: HTML WG Weekly 21 May 2009 [draft]

I'm still trying to reconcile the HTML working group's activities with
the W3C process document, as there seems to be some claim that,
while some unusual tactics are employed, the working group is operating 
according to the W3C process.



# 6.2.7 Working Group "Heartbeat" Requirement
....

# each Working Group SHOULD publish in the W3C technical reports index[1] a 
# new draft of each active technical report at least once every three months.

where a Working Draft is an active technical report. It is my belief
(as one of the authors and editors of the W3C process document) that
the intent of an updated working draft, and the significance taken
by the community, is that the new working draft is represents progress
in the working group toward consensus and agreement, and that changes
to the document from the previous working draft are the results of
the deliberations of the committee. 

The W3C technical reports index [1] contains 

* HTML 5 [2]
* HTML 5 differences from HTML 4 [3]
* HTML Design Principles [4]

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/

[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/WD-html5-20090423/

[3] http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/WD-html5-diff-20090423/

[4] http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/WD-html-design-principles-20071126/


If the working group is ending work on the Design Principles,
the appropriate next step is:



# 7.5 Ending Work on a Technical Report

# Work on a technical report MAY cease at any time. When a Working 
# Group completes its work on a technical report, it publishes it
# either as a Recommendation or a Working Group Note. For example, 
# a Working Group might publish several Working Drafts of a requirements
# document, and then indicate that it no longer plans to work on the
# requirements document by publishing a Working Group Note.

There is no process for issuing a new Working Draft with
changes which do not reflect the agreement of the working
group, or issuing a new Working Draft with a changed status
indicating that no future progress will be made.

Regards,

Larry
--
http://larry.masinter.net

Received on Sunday, 24 May 2009 15:51:50 UTC