New proposal for transition to a revised Technical Report Development Process [W3Process-ISSUE-39, W3Process-ACTION-20]

Considering the input on issue-39 [1,2] to-date, I offer the following
revised proposal:

Re: ISSUE-39: Managing the transition to a new TR cycle

Should the W3C Advisory Committee approve a new Technical Report
Development Process the Director will need to state the manner and
schedule for deployment of the revised Process.

As of the Director's announcement of the approval of a new Technical
Report Development Process:

1. All Technical Reports published after the adoption of a revised
   TR Development Process will state whether they were developed
   under the 2005 Process or under the new [2014] Process.

2. All new Working Groups whose charters are either in AC review or
   whose charters are about to be approved by the Director must follow
   the new [2014] TR Process.

3. Any Working Group with Recommendation Track documents published
   as Last Call Working Drafts under the 2005 Process will continue
   to follow the 2005 Process for those documents.

4. Any Working Group with Recommendation Track documents published
   as Candidate Recommendation specifications under the 2005 Process
   may republish those documents as Candidate Recommendation documents
   under the new [2014] TR Process.

5. Any Working Group that started work prior to the adoption of the
   new TR Process may choose either the 2005 TR Process or the new
   [2014] TR Process for its Recommendation Track deliverables not
   yet published as Last Call[2005] Working Drafts.  However, the
   Working Group should move any Recommendation Track document that
   has not reached Recommendation to the [2014] TR Process within
   24 months of the adoption of this new TR Process.

Rationale: Given the sorts of Process changes proposed in the current
TR Process drafts I believe that it will be only slightly more
confusing to have Recommendation Track documents from a single Group
proceed under different Processes than were those same documents to be
produced by different Groups.  Group Chairs have stated different and
conflicting needs for continuing under the 2005 Process until group-
specific milestones have been reached or moving to the new Process
immediately.  Therefore this transition plan allows each Group some
flexibility in determining when to transition their deliverables to
the new Process.

-Ralph

Notes on diffs compared to 14-Oct proposal [3]:

Item 1 - dropped explicit reference to Status of This Document section
in deference to the parallel discussion on revising the manner in which
the Status material is provided.

Item 2 - changed "will follow" to "must follow".  No change in intent.

Item 3 - removed soon-to-be LCWDs from this category; the WG can decide
about documents not yet at Last Call per item 5.

Item 4 - new item; existing CR documents are not forced to cycle back
to Last Call on substantive change as was implied by the 14-Oct
proposal.  While I do not anticipate a Working Group would choose to
move a CR[2005] document to WD[2014], that option is not meant to be
precluded in this proposal.

Item 5 - moved re-chartered Groups to this category. Dropped the
language about opening an issue on the decision and soliciting public
comment.  The decision of the WG is subject to the same discussion
and comment process as for any other WG issue so does not need to be
called out explicitly.  Added a deadline by which all Rec-Track TRs
are expected to be following the new Process.  Use of "should" is
intended to connote a discussion with the Director in the event the
Group does not wish to meet the deadline.

[1] http://www.w3.org/community/w3process/track/issues/39
[2] http://www.w3.org/2013/11/13-w3process-minutes.html#item02
[3] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-w3process/2013Oct/0042.html

Received on Monday, 2 December 2013 14:39:16 UTC