Re: First pass at use cases for "new standards" task force

My first reaction to the bypass idea is similar to Dominique's because, as 
he points out, there is a risk of diluting the W3C Recommendation label. 
At the same time this would be an effective way of getting more work to 
W3C, albeit of the rubber stamping kind rather than development, and 
assuming publication is vetted by the members it could attract new 
members.

Using a new name, a la Fast W3C Recommendation, could mitigate the risk of 
dilution to a certain extent but may also be less attractive. Maybe an 
appropriate disclaimer explaining the spec was published as "good enough" 
would do.
--
Arnaud  Le Hors - Program Director, Global Open Standards, IBM Open Source 
& Standards Policy




From:   Ian Jacobs <ij@w3.org>
To:     Dominique Hazael-Massieux <dom@w3.org>
Cc:     public-vision-newstd@w3.org
Date:   06/23/2010 07:24 AM
Subject:        Re: First pass at use cases for "new standards" task force
Sent by:        public-vision-newstd-request@w3.org




On 23 Jun 2010, at 3:43 AM, Dominique Hazael-Massieux wrote:

Hi Dom,

Thanks for commenting. My notes below are not pushback on your sense 
of priorities; just trying to be more explicit about some intentions 
and other thoughts.


> Le lundi 21 juin 2010 à 12:57 -0500, Ian Jacobs a écrit :
>> I've written down seven use cases [1]:
>>
>>               • [Core] Develop a new Web standard
>
> Do we really need to spend any effort on that one? It looks like we
> already have a process for dealing with this; also, the overlap with 
> the
> “Core” task force would be important.

I don't expect to spend much time on it, no.

>
>> • [Sunset] Revise a W3C Recommendation without a Working Group
>
> That also seems to be more of a “Core” Task force, than “*new*
> standards”.

I think I mentioned previously that these are other use cases that 
have come up in the context of these discussions. I'm putting  it here 
for the sake of "completion" although it may not be the primary focus 
of this task force. But if we can solve it with a lightweight process, 
so much the better.

>
>>               • [Ontology] Develop an industry-specific ontology
>>               • [Competition] Develop a competing specification
>>               • [Experiment] Experiment (new format or extension)
>>               • [Profile] Create a profile of one or more 
specifications
>
> That’s the four use cases I would focus on in priority; we have clear
> examples of where they would have been useful, and I can see benefits
> both for W3C and the community at large to have W3C be a place where
> that kind of work could happen.
>
>>               • [ByPass] Reset expectations between W3C Recommendation 
and de
>> facto standard
>
> I'm not thrilled by that one, but it might be a useful thing to 
> include
> in our discussions; that said, I wouldn't assume that this would be 
> done
> necessarily under the “W3C Recommendation” name (which would dilute 
> its
> — relative — standing).

I think there might be two sub-cases here, in fact:

  * Get something to Rec without a WG
  * Get something to a final state that is not a REC (but that 
represents some community review process), without a WG.

I was thinking that the first sub-case looks just like "revise a w3c 
rec" except that there's no WG here.

The second sub-case suggests "some other track without a WG" and a 
number of the use cases might want that approach (Experiment, Profile).

Ian

>
> Dom
>
>> [1] http://www.w3.org/2010/04/w3c-vision-public/wiki/Use_Cases

>
>
>

--
Ian Jacobs (ij@w3.org)    http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs/

Tel:                                      +1 718 260 9447