PNG WG first meeting topics

Hello everyone,

Here are some thoughts for our first meeting. Please consider these and
respond in email or in meeting. (Note that this thread is going on the
public mailing list.)

*General:*

   - I would like everyone's opinion to be heard and considered. If you are
   perhaps shy or unsure if a broad email is warranted, you can always email
   me directly.
   - We are all human and will make mistakes. Please assume good
   intentions. Using myself as an example, I will try to steer us toward our
   shared goal. I hope this never accidentally comes across as a power
   dynamic. Please feel free to express concerns to the group or privately.
   Either myself or Chris Lilley would be good contacts for that.
   - I would like everyone to be able to work on the parts they are
   passionate about. I will fill in to cover the less-loved parts.
   - I believe we need to allocate time for patent disclosure for the
   existing PNG spec before we can make changes for the new spec. I believe
   Chris Lilley might be most informed and able to help with that.

*PNG-specific:*

   - It has been a long time since the PNG spec was last updated. That will
   affect how we operate.
   - We could try to do a large update. I don't think this is a good path,
      though.

      The C++ standard community did this with C++11. They were delayed
      several years and "When will it release?" became a playful joke. After
      their large update, they changed to a steady release schedule of every 3
      years, claiming that large updates were a bad plan.

      - Or we could aim for small, periodic, scoped updates.

      Chris Lilley and I have spoken and we feel this is our best path
      forward. It also makes it much easier for standards bodies to accept our
      proposed changes.

      - Proposed small-scope changes for the 3rd edition of the PNG spec:
      - There are several errata from the existing 2nd edition
      <https://github.com/w3c/PNG-spec/milestone/1> which we should fix.
         - Sometimes these are simple, like using International English
         spellings (eg. "colour") instead of American English spellings (eg.
         "color") as required by some international standards bodies. These
         editorial changes can be made in-place with an update to the
2nd edition
         and no W3C director approval.
         - Other times, we need to do something more technical. The path of
         least resistance is for these changes to go into the 3rd edition.
      - We will be adding new, 3rd edition pieces
      <https://github.com/w3c/PNG-spec/milestone/2> to the spec.
         - Keeping in mind the goal of a small scope, Chris Lilley and I
         believe only new pieces we should add right now are:
            - *Exif,*
            - *APNG*, and
            - *cICP & iCCN*.
         - There are other issues people have suggested (not marked with a
         GitHub milestone) which are not included here. The reasoning is these
         issues didn't seem to have enough industry need. Rather, they
were more
         like ideas / suggestions. It is difficult to establish an
industry standard
         without user need.

*How to make progress:*

   - I have marked GitHub issues with tags named "needs ____" to indicate
   the next step required to reach a goal.
      - "Needs resolved discussion" is something we should all look at /
      talk about in meetings.
      - "Needs edits" means the issue is ready to go and someone can make a
      pull request to update the spec.
   - To get director approval, we'll really want all of the new spec pieces
   to be implemented (for example, in Chromium or SmartTVs) and tested (for
   example, in the Web Platform Tests
   <https://github.com/web-platform-tests/wpt>). I'm happy to help someone
   with this if they find a piece they are passionate about.



If there are other topics you think we should consider, feel free to
mention them.

Thanks
-Chris Blume