Milestones and transitions

Now that Silvia has integrated the latest specification, I think we have reached a major milestone:  we have covered the major features people have asked for, and particularly those needed for compliance with FCC rulings.  

I have no doubt that there is more feature work to do, and the community group continues to exist to continue to work on that.

And I have no doubt that there are bugs in the specification, and the community group and (if/when it happens) the VTT work in a full working group, will be finding and addressing those also.


But people are implementing and referencing the VTT work, and I've heard of a number of requests for a stable reference with known IPR status.  Such a formal stable reference would also facilitate the transition of work into a working group.  A stable reference is also needed to get the IPR commitments.


To that end, Silvia has made a 'snapshot' of the specification available at <http://www.w3.org/2013/07/webvtt.html>.

That satisfies the first need:  a stable reference.

To satisfy the second, I believe we should start what is known (perhaps rather hopefully) as a 'Final Specification Agreement'.  It's linked from the process description of the Community Groups here <http://www.w3.org/community/about/agreements/>.  This gives everyone, participants in particular and especially all those who contributed ideas or text, the opportunity to extend their IPR commitment to the full text of the specification.  I am hoping that as many of you as can will sign this, and obviously we all hope that the major contributors do (the list of contributors at the end of the document may be a good guide here).  That'll remove, in people's minds, one possible hesitation from implementing.

I suspect many will be thinking that there is probably little or no IPR that they (or indeed anyone) has;  I'd still encourage you to sign (as long as you would abide by it if you later find IPR you own), as it removes doubt.

And though it's called 'final', there is nothing to stop us doing this again if we believe that the spec. has changed significantly.  That's why I think we should seize this milestone -- it's not a one-off opportunity.

So, I'll soon be formally initiating this 'FSA', unless we feel that this is a bad idea.  I hope no-one does: stability and clarity are both enablers to implementation, and we (and those needing media accessibility) need implementation and use.

Thanks to everyone for their hard work in reaching this status, and especially to Ian and Silvia (our great editors)!


David Singer
Multimedia and Software Standards, Apple Inc.

Received on Wednesday, 10 July 2013 13:10:09 UTC