RE: Learning from the ASF (was: What is Process Good For?)

Sam wrote:
> >2.  Contributors.  First let's NOT create a system that requires 
>> non-W3C members to become Invited Experts.  ...I believe the CG model, or at least the CG 
>>CLA as a GitHub license file that people agree to when they make a 
>> pull request, is about the right mix of flexibility and legality.

>It is not clear to me what the disagreement is here

Right, I was trying to agree with you :-)


>> 4. Team of editors make technical decisions rather than chairs. I'm 
>> not sure I agree with Sam on this point.

>  What I am advocating for is a community model where there is a team of active comitters/editors who work together based on consensus.  
> Once such has been obtained, I don't see a need for an appointed outsider to be placed in a privileged position.

Got it, that's fine by me.

> On a related topic, it is too easy at the W3C to create a Community Group, which leads to a number of abandoned efforts.  

Hmm.  Making it "too easy" to create a CG was by design.  I think all concerned at the time realized that would lead to far more unproductive CGs than ones that produced anything, but that was worth it if important specs got incubated from the beginning with credible RF patent commitments.

> It also isn't currently possible for a Community Group to produce a Technical Report.
"That's not a bug, it's a feature!"  According to some participants in the deliberations that created CGs a few years ago anyway ... the ones most worried about CGs cannibalizing the value proposition for becoming a W3C member. 

I think this would be a good topic for the Process CG to consider in depth.
- Should CG specs that get to Final Specification get published on the /TR page?  If so, is that just a Pubrules change or a Process Document Change? Should there be some minimum participation, FSA signer, longevity, etc. threshold?
- Should we tweak the Process Document to make it possible for a WG to adopt a CG Final Spec as a First Public Working Draft or even a Candidate Recommendation, subject only to the Call for Exclusions that a FPWD triggers?
- How else could we smooth the on-ramp between successful CGs and WGs, without undermining W3C's value proposition or lowering the perceived quality of what's published with W3C's imprimatur?

-----Original Message-----
From: Sam Ruby [mailto:rubys@intertwingly.net] 
Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2014 10:44 AM
To: Michael Champion (MS OPEN TECH); Jeff Jaffe
Cc: public-w3process
Subject: Learning from the ASF (was: What is Process Good For?)

On 12/16/2014 11:21 AM, Michael Champion (MS OPEN TECH) wrote:
> Sam wrote:
>
>> Noting that there doesn't seem to be others agreeing with my points,
>
> I am agreeing for the most part.  While replies on this thread talk 
> about the differences between ASF and W3C, I've argued that there are 
> lots of things we can learn from ASF about specific challenges W3C 
> faces now.  Let's change the focus of the thread to talk about 
> specifics.

OK, I've changed the subject.

>> Consider the fact that it is a different model.  One where all work 
>> is being made available under the CC0 license.  One where 
>> contributors are defined as people who contribute and not by being 
>> named by member companies.  One where contributors become editors by 
>> sustained contributions rather than being named by chairs.  One where 
>> a growing team of editors make technical decisions rather than chairs 
>> or directors.
>
> Let's take these one at a time:
>
> 1. License.  I agree with Jeff that CC0 is a bit too far of a stretch 
> for many people here.  To be pedantic, it's not a "license" it's a
> *waiver* of all rights. That creates the sort of confusion we have 
> with some WHATWG folks who put a CC0 waiver on their documents but 
> then complain when people do things they don't like with the text.
> Let's say what we mean; we want to encourage collaboration but 
> recognize that forking is a legitimate option if it becomes clear that 
> different parts of a community have different goals or fundamentally 
> different ideas about how to achieve them.  So I would prefer a 
> workmode that either re-uses the Apache 2.0 license (since it seems to 
> be acceptable to Mozilla while encouraging attribution) for specs or 
> another document license that does not create barriers to 
> participation.  (Yes, I am aware that some colleagues at Microsoft 
> disagree, but I'm not attempting to speak for them in this CG)

Noting that you and Wayne have been discussing this, all I have to add is that here are the use cases: 
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2009Feb/0388.html

And I encourage you to check the following resources, and select only an existing license that these two organizations have pre-approved:

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html
https://www.mozilla.org/MPL/license-policy.html

> 2.  Contributors.  First let's NOT create a system that requires 
> non-W3C members to become Invited Experts.  I think it's very clear 
> that experiment by the HTML WG failed.  We do want outside people to 
> participate in developing web platform specs, including both those who 
> have some philosophical reason not to work at W3C even though their 
> employers are members, and the hopefully much larger group of website 
> developers who know what their frustrations are and have ideas on how 
> to improve the experience.  I believe the CG model, or at least the CG 
> CLA as a GitHub license file that people agree to when they make a 
> pull request, is about the right mix of flexibility and legality.

It is not clear to me what the disagreement is here.  I sense that we want to encourage those who are interested in actually contributing to do so.  This is independent of whether or not they are employed by a member company?

Use case: should I ever become unemployed (to be clear: my company seems happy with me, but many companies do periodic "reductions in force" with no apparent rhyme or reason), I would still be interested in working on the URL specification; and would be willing to sign a CLA like the ASF's, but would not be willing to sign the current Invited Experts agreement.  The wording of section 2.2 of the W3C Community Contributor License Agreement (CLA) confuses me.  In particular, the copyright grant (per section 2.1) is non-exclusive, and I (and others who make
contributions) should continue to be able to do with my (and our) contributions as we like.

> 3. Contributor become editors.  YES!  This both touches on the "merit" 
> aspect of the Apache Way Sam and I pointed to earlier,  and addresses 
> the very real problem that W3C editors are traditionally bottlenecks.  
> Let's try to move toward a model of people who want something changed 
> CHANGE THE SPEC (in a fork), and request their change be pulled back 
> into the main spec.  That's where the community has a chance to weigh 
> in, not in interminable calls for consensus about whether to do 
> something in the abstract, or weeks-long wordsmithing exercises.

Cool.

> 4. Team of editors make technical decisions rather than chairs. I'm 
> not sure I agree with Sam on this point.  I like the spirit of "those 
> who can, do" but I want to steer away from the WHATWG model of 
> whispering in the editors' ear on IRC about a change and having the 
> editor go do it.  We want to empower people to learn to write good 
> specs, not perpetuate a privileged group of editors who maintain
> control.   I think chairs can still play a valuable role in assessing
> the degree of consensus / opposition to re-integrating a particular 
> fork, and there is something to be said for chairs as the 
> checks/balances on editors.  But I agree that the model of appealing 
> to the Director is not working and needs to be avoided in the new 
> model (and eventually scrapped from W3C).

This merits more discussion.

For starters, I'm not advocating for a model where a single editor for a document gets to make all of the decisions.  What I am advocating for is a community model where there is a team of active comitters/editors who work together based on consensus.  Once such has been obtained, I don't see a need for an appointed outsider to be placed in a privileged position.

On a related topic, it is too easy at the W3C to create a Community Group, which leads to a number of abandoned efforts.  It also isn't currently possible for a Community Group to produce a Technical Report.

Again, I would draw from the ASF where it is easy to create an incubator "podling", which is actively mentored.  Once that podling has demonstrated that it can self-govern, it gets approved as a full-fledged project.  Such a project appoints their own editors/committers, and chair.  The ASF board has the authority to disapprove of new committers or outright replace the chair, but these actions are rare.

Details here:

http://incubator.apache.org/incubation/Process_Description.html

- Sam Ruby

Received on Tuesday, 16 December 2014 20:15:33 UTC