Process for this coming Wednesday and toward Last Call

To the Working Group:

            This email explains our thinking as co-chairs for the role of the June Draft of the compliance spec in supporting the Working Group towards Last Call while resolving the remaining concerns.

            Based on our experience to date on issue-by-issue discussion in the WG, our assessment has been that a streamlined, unified document would provide the best baseline for the group’s deliberations in our efforts to reach consensus for the Last Call deadline. The goal was to design a “package” that addresses essential concerns of all parties in a fair manner.

            We now propose to use the June Draft as a new starting point for our discussions. The goal to end up with a final call document, which can be supported by the whole group (in the “can live with” manner), remains untouched.

            The Compliance Spec editors, Justin Brookman and Heather West, agree that the most promising procedure to work toward consensus is to have the June Draft be issued as a formal Editors Draft, to re-start from one clear base text thatproposes resolutions for many ISSUEs that are “pending review.”

            In the Wednesday call on June 19, we will see whether the group believes there is any better starting point for addressing the remaining issues by Last Call.  If, as we believe, the streamlined June Draft provides the best chance for successfully getting to Last Call, then we expect to use the following procedure for opening/closing issues:

            (1) W3C staff is sending to the group a detailed set of annotations to the June Draft, which shows what currently open issues are affected by each portion of the June Draft.  The document that Yianni Lagos sent to the group on June 10 indicates many of these; the new document is designed to make it easy for persons interested in each open issue to spot where relevant text exists.

            (2) We invite each of you to propose alternative text for any portion of the June Draft.  We plan to open new issues for each such proposal that we receive by [date – either June 25 or June 27].  Where appropriate, we will group more than one proposal into a new issue (such as multiple proposals for the definition of a specific permitted use).

            (3) If the WG on June 19 does agree to use the June Draft as the starting point, then we will close all currently open issues for the compliance spec (with cross-references, as needed, to newly opened issues).  This closure satisfies the bureaucratic requirement that Last Call occurs when all open issues are closed, while ensuring (through the newly opened issues) that the remaining concerns are addressed.

            On substance, one specific area where we expect to do detailed work is on de-identification.  How to choose between the two-step or three-step model, and what to put into W3C normative text for that, will be an important part of the discussion.

            The issues in the June Draft are extremely familiar to the group; almost all of them were already before the group when Peter became co-chair in November.  In subsequent group calls, we will move systematically through the open issues.  For each one, we will have a discussion, and attempt to determine whether the group believes an alternative should be adopted.  Where no consensus exists, we expect to move promptly to decision by the co-chairs, in order to complete a spec by Last Call.  To meet the Last Call deadline, we will discuss this coming Wednesday the possibility of extending the time of the currently scheduled Wednesday calls or perhaps adding some additional calls on a different day.

            In short, the focus for the next Wednesday call is to determine whether the group prefers any alternative to this proposed procedure.  If the group decides to move forward with the proposed procedure, wewill promptly open issues and discuss alternatives to provisions in the June Draft.

Matthias and Peter




Prof. Peter P. Swire
C. William O'Neill Professor of Law
Ohio State University
240.994.4142
www.peterswire.net

Beginning August 2013:
Nancy J. and Lawrence P. Huang Professor
Law and Ethics Program
Scheller College of Business
Georgia Institute of Technology