Re: [patcg.github.io] Adding a clear incubation process and flow (#7)

> This is not the standard I am endorsing. Rather, I believe that the standard ought to be the one in the charter, namely "there is consensus amongst Community Group Participants that the work should be taken on and that the document is a good basis for a Community Group Report. What I'm opposed to is taking on documents where there is _not_ consensus on that point.

Perhaps, then, our disagreement is on the meaning of the word "basis".  Because I think something that *is* a good start, but may not graduate to actually BEING a CGR (if subsequent incubation proves it is not a good idea), meets that bar.  It SHOULD be made clear that's not the same as the CG making a statement (like a CGR does) that "this is what the CG thinks is the right solution".

> And yet companies frequently ship specs that are only in WICG and we often get calls to implement those specs.

Indeed, and companies frequently ship specs that are not even in WICG (e.g. https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/2021/10/28/implementing-global-privacy-control/), and we get calls to implement such specs also.  

It is definitely the case that we should encourage open community-driven design, and I certainly agree that it should be made clear that such items are proposals for discussion, not adopted consensus specifications - or "the chosen solution".  (Though again, anything in a CG does not have "official standards standing".)

> Re: personal repositories, ISTM that part of the problem is the distinction between a discussion forum (which I agree that the CG should sponsor, even for non-adopted drafts) and for where the drafts live. Github tends to blur those distinctions, but my concern is having documents appear on a piece of real estate which tends to indicate that they are work items of the CG, when they are merely being discussed but have not been adopted.

My concern is that asking for engagement and contributions to a document that does not have clear IP commitments is a Bad Idea; this is one of the reasons WHY we try to move out from personal repos asap.  If the guidance from this discussion is that THIS CG wants to hold them at arm's length until they reach some finish line of acceptability, that's the CG's prerogative, but that doesn't change that we will need to put them somewhere that is not just a personal repo.  (That's likely to be WICG as a placeholder - again, presuming such proposals pass the WICG bar of having some other entity agree it's worth incubating).

Martin, to build on what you said, people will not bother to sink ANY effort into a design when the CG isn't even agreeing to look at it.  WICG is a very different beast in this regard, as WICG is EXPLICITLY not trying to reduce solutions to O(1); it is to give an IP-regimented space to have discussions, and hopefully figure it out to the point it can go somewhere official (that is, explicitly, a WG or WHATWG or the like).

If there are places you're still seeing "WICG label interpreted as something more than it is", then please point me (and the other WICG co-chairs) at them, because we have been trying to make this clearer and clearer.

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Received on Monday, 21 March 2022 18:17:23 UTC