Re: [Minutes] 23-24 February face-to-face meeting

Hi, Manu–

I appreciate everything you've done to get this work started, and all 
your contributions to the Web Payments WG thus far. I also understand 
why you are frustrated.

However, as staff contact for the group, I have to ask you to refrain in 
the future from sending messages that impugn others, or that use 
offensive language.

I respect you for your technical prowess, and for your dedication
to improve the payment landscape, but technical competence is only one 
of the criteria for participation in the W3C Process document [1].

We are all genuinely trying to look after the interests of the larger 
community, and messages with a dismissive or negative tone discourage 
wider participation and constructive compromise.

We have to maintain a civil discourse in our standards discussions, and 
we decide issues on their technical merit. Without these foundations, 
this working group will descend into bickering and dysfunction, and 
fail. This work is too important for us to allow it to fail.

I don't want this message to set the tone for this group; this should 
not serve as precedent for other WG participants to think that they can 
speak this way to others, or to fear that others will speak this way to 
them. It's totally inappropriate.


Regarding the influence of the browser makers, it's true that the WG has 
to create a spec that they will implement and deploy, but I think you're 
underestimating the ability others have to influence the design, educate 
the browser makers, and drive requirements and spec features.


Regarding the minutes, as with any meeting minutes, the scribe captures 
the gist, not the precise wording of what was said; this isn't a 
transcript. And while some of the nuance and even major points were 
elided from the minutes, I also don't think you are accurately 
representing what was said in the room at the time (even if you were 
thinking it), and thus it's inappropriate and inaccurate to have your 
suggested changes, as written, in the minutes.


[1] http://www.w3.org/2014/Process-20140801/#ParticipationCriteria

Regards–
–Doug
On 2/26/16 11:39 AM, Manu Sporny wrote:
> On 02/25/2016 11:37 AM, Ian Jacobs wrote:
>> Raw minutes from the face-to-face meeting are available:
>>
>> 23 Feb: https://www.w3.org/2016/02/23-wpwg-minutes 24 Feb:
>> https://www.w3.org/2016/02/24-wpwg-minutes
>>
>> I’ve made some small editorial fixes but not reviewed in detail.
>> Please send me any fix requests.
>
>> manu: it's obvious to me that browser want to start with their
>> proposal ... CG spec was an attempt to give input to the browsers ...
>> proposal: use the Google-Microsoft proposal
>
> This is a very watered down version of what I said, and doesn't capture
> what went on in the room:
>
> manu: It's obvious to me that the browser vendors will not go with any
> proposal but the one that they put forward, so what the WG wants doesn't
> really matter in this particular case.
>
> manu: I find it offensive that Adrian Bateman (from Microsoft) says that
> he doesn't understand the Web Payments CG proposal and couldn't work
> with it since he doesn't understand it. It's been public for months and
> all he had to do was ask about parts of it and we would have explained
> it to him. The CG took the time to analyze the Microsoft/Google
> proposal, we put in effort to understand it, and we submitted 25+ issues
> on it (which haven't been integrated into the issues in that spec). The
> browser vendors haven't done the basic due diligence to read and raise
> issues on the Web Payments Community Group spec. This has not been an
> equal exchange of intellectual due diligence.
>
> manu: In addition, I think there is a large amount of intellectual
> dishonesty going on here on the part of the browser vendors, but the WG
> is really powerless to do anything about it because the browser vendors
> are going to do whatever they want at the end of the day. So, there are
> really only four opinions in the room that matter - Microsoft, Google,
> Apple, and Mozilla.
>
> manu: This is typical W3C browsers-vs-everyone-else politics - it's
> about control and the browser vendors want the control. We're no longer
> having a technical discussion, this is politics. Speaking as a
> non-browser W3C member, and as the Chair of the Web Payments Community
> Group, I'm really fucking pissed off about what is happening here. This
> is bullshit.
>
> manu: So, that said, I see two choices in front of us. Spend the next
> day of face to face time slugging it out over the specs w/ the browser
> vendors digging their heels in more and more OR pick their spec and
> get on to discussing issues, which we really need to do to get a First
> Public Working Draft out by the end of March. I don't think we have any
> choice but to kill the CG specs at this point.
>
> manu: So, here's the only workable proposal that I see: Abandon the CG
> specifications and pick the Google/Microsoft proposal as the base
> specification so we can get some spec text under the control of the
> Working Group and then start processing issues.
>
> -- manu
>

Received on Monday, 29 February 2016 20:12:04 UTC