[wbs] response to 'Call for Review: Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Working Group Charter'

The following answers have been successfully submitted to 'Call for Review:
Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Working Group Charter' (Advisory Committee)
for Vivliostyle Inc. by Florian Rivoal.


The reviewer's organization suggests changes to this Charter, and only
supports the proposal if the changes are adopted [Formal Objection].

Additional comments about the proposal:
   I strongly believe SVG is a key technology that needs to see continuing
work, and would love nothing more than to support the charter for a healthy
SVG
working group. However, despite some small improvements since the previous
proposal, I still think this charter is not good enough and is setting the
group for failure.

First, despite calls after the failure of previous charter for a broad
discussion involving not only a handful of powerful companies, but the
whole
SVG community including invited experts, this charter seems to have been
developed based on private discussions only. There have been no requests
for
comment to the www-svg list, or even to the narrower mailing lists for
working
group members (which would presumably still include all members as of the
time
the last WG charter expired). That does not necessarily makes the charter
bad,
but even a good charter won't do much if the group lacks attendees.

To partially compensate for this lack of public discussion, As I believe
input
from non browser key contributors into this charter is essential, I reached
out
the Amelia Bellamy-Royds, invited expert, key contributor to SVG and
co-editor
of SVG2, while writing this. Her comments and suggestions significantly
enriched my review, and as we ended up agreeing on mostly everything, this
review also represents her views.

Moving on to substantive issues about the charter:

1. Timeline: 

1.1 An updated CR for SVG2 in August 2017 does not make much sense. There
have
been a handful of edits since the last CR that could be worth
republishing.
However, there are 138 open issues in github, including 95 tagged SVG-CORE
(which means they affect the subject matter of the chapters in the main
spec,
although that may include feature requests and proposals in addition to
issues). I find it hard to believe these are going to be triaged and
resolved
and get a disposition of comments within a month or so. 

1.2. The timeline for getting SVG2 to PR is beyond optimistic, and well
into
impossible territory. SVG2 is a massive spec, it currently does not have a
test
suite. I invite people to check how long it took for CSS2.1, a
specification of
comparable complexity, to go from first CR to PR. Even if the spec is
edited to
only include features with 2+ implementations, there are countless details
and
edge cases within those features which need to be tested to demonstrate
true
inter-operability. And if the spec is going to be edited to remove
features,
then the August 2017 date for a revised CR is even more unrealistic.

1.3. The timeline for SVG-AAM with a CR by February 2018 (and PR by June)
is
not a whole lot more credible. Currently, there are some major spec issues
waiting on feedback, and very little implementer interest.

Widely inaccurate timelines and milestones are nothing new, and a fair few
charters have that issue. So long as they don't affect the ability of the
WG to
work, it is regrettable that we put garbage there (especially if we are
later
going to evaluate the success of the WG against that timeline), but it's
not in
itself a blocking issue. However, in the case of this specific charter, it
interacts very poorly with the question of scope (see below), turning it
into
grounds for objection.

2. Scope:

The charter says:

> As a primary focus in this charter period, the group will concentrate on
the
> stabilisation and interoperability testing of the core SVG 2
specification.
> 
> "As a secondary focus, the group may address modules for new graphical
> features for SVG, only once SVG 2 is at the Proposed Recommendation
stage"
> and once there is broad consensus on adding each such feature to the Web
> Platform. A requirements document will be used to collect together these
> features.

I am 100% in support of non SVG2 work being a secondary focus. Working on
that
at a lower priority than SVG2 seems the best thing to do. However, this
phrasing forbids working on it at all until SVG2 hits PR, which means that
in
the meanwhile, there will be no acceptable place to have any discussion on
new
features. This risks splitting the SVG community between maintainers and
innovators, if it doesn't kill the innovation part entirely. It may also
mean
that the WG might be reluctant to split off from SVG2 a feature that would
be
slower than the rest to mature, since it could then be considered a thing
you
cannot work on at all until the rest is done. 

This in itself would be pretty bad even if that was for the short 1 year
period
the charter suggests, but given that I am convinced that taking SVG2 to PR
will
take several times as long.

Here is a suggested alternative, that keeps finishing SVG2 as the top
priority,
without being quite as suppressive of forward looking work or as dismissive
of
people wishing to do that work.

> As a primary focus in this charter period, the group will concentrate on
the
> stabilisation and interoperability testing of the core SVG 2
specification.
> As part of that testing, features which do not meet the stability and
> interoperability requirements for a Proposed Recommendation may be moved
to
> separate specification modules, work on which would remain in scope, but
at a
> lower priority.

> As a secondary focus, the working group may compile feature requests and
> proposals for new graphical features for SVG, and will provide a public
forum
> for discussing these ideas in order to be able to determine broad
consensus
> for adding such features to the Web Platform.  However, spec development
and
> testing work on new feature proposals is not a priority until SVG 2 is at
the
> Proposed Recommendation stage.

3. Testing

3.1. "test as you commit"

This is a laudable practice. Following this practice is likely to have
positive
effects in the long on the quality of the specification and on
iteroperability.
However, test writing and test reviewing are chronically understaffed
activities throughout W3C. Unless multiple people (a single person cannot
review their own tests) are committing to spend significant time for a
period
of several years to write tests and to review other people's tests, this
will
significantly slow down work on the specification, possibly bringing it to
a
standstill.

Note that my main worry is not so much that people will fail to write
tests
(although that may very well happen as well). Rather, it is that tests
written
by editors mail fail to get reviewed for prolonged periods of time,
stalling
progress and demotivating these editors. This is even more likely to happen
to
contributors who do not work for major browser vendors and cannot drag in
co-workers to review their tests.

This is a problem on its own, but this probable slowdown also makes the
prohibition on non SVG2 work until SVG2 PR even worse.

I suggest that this clause be removed from the charter, and that this be
left
to the chair’s discretion. I would encourage him to make the Working
Group follow the "test as you commit" approach if and when practical, 
but making it mandatory is likely to cause problems.

3.2. Focus of the test suite

The charter says that the SVG test suite should concentrate on changes
relative
to SVG 1.1 Second Edition. I do not believe this to be a good idea.
Although
the existing SVG 1.1 test suite will be a useful starting point, it is not
anywhere near a comprehensive test suite for the un-changed parts of the
spec.

The key motivation for focusing on SVG2 above other work is to achieve
greater
interoperability. This can only be realized through thorough testing.
Artificially lowering the bar so that we can hit TR milestones more easily
is
counter productive.


The reviewer's organization intends to participate in these groups:
   - Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Working Group

The reviewer's organization:
   - intends to review drafts as they are published and send comments.
   - intends to develop experimental implementations and send experience
reports.
   - intends to develop products based on this work.
   - intends to apply this technology in our operations.
   - would be interested in participating in any press activity connected
with this group.

Answers to this questionnaire can be set and changed at
https://www.w3.org/2002/09/wbs/33280/SVG-2017/ until 2017-07-17.

 Regards,

 The Automatic WBS Mailer

Received on Saturday, 15 July 2017 17:12:08 UTC