Re: Publication schedule for first public working drafts

Hmm. Although the W3C process documents (in particular,
http://www.w3.org/2005/10/Process-20051014/tr.html#DocumentStatus) back
up Bijan's stance on the status of WDs, I don't know if I would approve
of making the webont documents directly into WDs without some sort of
disclaimer, as I believe that there is the general perception that the
default view of a WD is that it is some sort of record of what a WG has
done.  (This is not to say that I would vote against anything in the
webont documents.)

So my suggestion would be to turn the two+ webont documents into WDs
very quickly, essentially verbatim, but to put strong wording in the
document status section that these documents are in essence the *inputs*
to the WG and that the WG has published them to transition them to W3C
control and to get community input on them during the time that the WG
is making decisions on how they might be changed.

I'm willing to put together wording to go into the document status
section in preparation for an up-or-down vote on this at the next
teleconference (24 October).

peter

PS:  Are we going to hit a publication blackout snag in this plan?


From: Bijan Parsia <bparsia@cs.man.ac.uk>
Subject: Publication schedule for first public working drafts
Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 19:22:14 +0100

> It was resolved at the last telecon that *by the first f2f* we would  
> publish as first public working drafts (1stWD) roughly the following  
> three OWL 1.1 documents:
> 
> 	Structural Specification
> 	Formal Semantics
> 	RDF Mapping
> 
> Which, together, comprise the core specification of the language,  
> i.e., they are together sufficient to implement of parsers,  
> reasoners, editors, etc. and rigorous enough to support  
> interoperability.
> 
> I imagine we will transition *all* the OWL 1.1 specs to W3C space  
> fairly soon. That doesn't make them WDs. Generally, such versions are  
> called "Editor's drafts" and they are not intended to reflect *any*  
> general will of the WG.
> 
> Working Drafts *do not* signal that the WG endorses all aspects (or  
> *any* aspects) of those drafts, but merely that the WG thought they  
> were publication worthy.
> 
> I propose that we publish these three documents as first public WDs  
> in the next few weeks for the following reasons:
> 	1) It meets the heartbeat requirement and establishes a good  
> publishing pace.
> 	2) It provides a clear transition from the webont.org space to W3C  
> space.
> 		People are *continually reviewing* the OWL 1.1 specs. For example,  
> see this thread:
> 			<http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-owl-dev/2007OctDec/ 
> 0074.html>
> 	I want to encourage as much feedback as possible and to continue the  
> very open process that OWLED and OWL 1.1 have enjoyed thus far.  
> People should have a clear target for their ongoing review. I know  
> some WG members have qualms about various aspects of the current  
> drafts (e.g., like Jeremey expressed in the Telecon about the RDF  
> Mapping). So will *non-members*. On thing that focuses reviewer  
> attention is WD publication. While we, as a group, are getting up to  
> speed on the documents, we should be encouraging *other people* to do  
> so as well and to make their thoughts about the documents know to us.
> 	This is why I object to the whole notion of first doing an "internal  
> review" as suggested by Vipul during the telecon. We want lots of  
> feedback *now*, before we start mucking with the documents as a  
> group. We want that feedback to be ongoing. And, as I said, the  
> documents are already public, with a year and a half's worth of  
> effort trying to get people to look at them :)
> 
> Remember, that we have significant existing implementations (TopBraid  
> Composer, Protege4, OWLSight, Pellet, FaCT++, etc.) which use these  
> documents. So saying very clearly, "HEY, we're starting work on these  
> documents! Pay attention!", (which is what the FPWD publishing event  
> says very clearly) is wise.
> 
> Cheers,
> Bijan.

Received on Wednesday, 17 October 2007 19:24:16 UTC