Ian Jacobs comments [Was: New draft - please review]

On Feb 5, 2014, at 8:03 AM, Charles McCathie Nevile <chaals@yandex-team.ru> wrote:

> On Wed, 05 Feb 2014 03:11:15 +0400, Charles McCathie Nevile <chaals@yandex-team.ru> wrote:
> 
>> Hi,
>> 
>> I just pushed a new draft: https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/AB/raw-file/20fb4f012006/tr.html
> 
> And I just pushed an update to that:
> https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/AB/raw-file/acebbefd27bb/tr.html


Charles,

Thanks for the updated Rec Track Process draft [1] and invitation to
review. Here are some comments!

Ian

[1] https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/AB/raw-file/acebbefd27bb/tr.html

===== 

- Preamble: "Errata cannot be made normative except by republishing a
  Recommendation or a Revised Recommendation". I think "republishing a 
  Recommendation" is the same as "a Revised Recommendation". If that's
  not the case, please explain, otherwise you can probably just say
  "by revising a Recommendation."

- 7.1: Suggest changing text from: "For a technical specification,
  once review suggests the work has been completed and the document is
  good enough to become a new standard, there will then be a Candidate
  Recommendation phase..."
  
  To: "For a technical specification, once review demonstrates that a
  group has fulfilled its technical requirements, there will then be a
  Candidate Recommendation phase..."

  Rationale:

   * "Good enough" sounds informal an ill-defined
   * The phrase "work has been completed" may be misleading
  
  The proposed language is drawn from the language used in the CR
  maturity level definition.

- Four separate sections of the document talk about Notes: 7.1 (2
  paragraphs), 7.1.2 (1 paragraph), 7.3.3 (1 paragraph), and 7.8 (a
  few more paragraphs). I believe you can consolidate all this text
  and remove some of the redundancy. I am happy to propose concrete
  edits if you think that would be useful.

- 7.1: "Individual Working Groups and Interest Groups may adopt
  additional processes for developing publications, so long as they do
  not conflict with the requirements in this chapter."

  Proposed editorial change: "Different Working Groups and Interest
  Groups typically evolve different internal processes for developing
  documents. Such processes MUST NOT conflict with the requirements in
  this chapter."

  I think the word "Additional" does not quite capture what I think
  you are referring to: operational details (which may very by group).

- Some places that are missing text following the reintroduction of PR:

  * 7.1.1: In the first list, missing a bullet for PR
  * 7.4: In the first list, missing PR as expected next step.
  
- 7.1.2: "Substantive changes must not be made to a Proposed
  Recommendation except by publishing a new Candidate Recommendation."

  Is it possible for the Director to return a PR to WD?

- 7.1.2: "Editor's drafts have no official standing whatsoever, and do
  not imply consensus of a Working Group or Interest Group, nor are
  their contents endorsed in any way by W3C."

  I suggest "do not necessarily imply consensus of a WG or IG."

- 7.2.3.1 Wide review. Suggest changing "A recommended practice is
  making a specific announcement to other W3C Working Groups as well
  as the general public, especially the sub-communities thereof that
  are affected by this specification, that a group proposes to enter
  Candidate Recommendation in e.g. approximately four weeks. "

  to:

  "Group's SHOULD inform others of their schedule to advance to
  CR. The recommended practice is to make a specific announcement to
  other W3C Working Groups as well as the general public, especially
  to communities with known dependencies."

- 7.2.4: 
 
  1) "to ensure that independent interoperable implementations of each
  feature of the specification will be realized." Suggest s/will/can/
  
  2) "created by other" suggest "created by other people"

  3) "creation, consuming, publishing" are different forms of speech.
     One alternative: "(authoring, consuming, publishing...)"

- 7.3.2 (editorial): s/from review from beyond/from review beyond/

- 7.4.1: Suggest deleting this section and simply incorporating
  what's needed in 7.4.

  Also note the missing word "NOT" in "MUST [NOT] approve the publication
  of a revised CR."

- 7.4: "The Director must announce the publication of a Candidate
  Recommendation to other W3C groups and to the public, and must begin
  an Advisory Committee Review of the specification on publication."

  Suggest deleting "on publication" as unnecessary (and possibly
  over-constraining). 

- 7.5: "must identify where errata are tracked, and". I believe that
  we only start caring about errata a Rec. I suggest deleting this
  bullet.

- 7.5: "should not approve a Request for publication of a Proposed
  Recommendation less than 35 days after the publication of the
  Candidate Recommendation on which is it based [editor's note - this
  is to allow for the patent policy exclusion period to expire]"

  Please simplify to:

  "should not approve a Request for publication of a Proposed
  Recommendation sooner than 150 days after the publication of the
  First Public Working Draft." That's the duration used in the patent
  policy; it will be easier to explain and remember, instead of
  introducing a new number "35".

- 7.5: For other steps you have a "Possible next steps" section; this is
  missing for PR.

- 7.7.1: Errata management. Is this text still relevant given the
  harmonization of the substantive change language?

  "Note: Before a document becomes a Recommendation, the W3C Process
  focuses on substantive changes (those related to prior
  reviews). After a document has been published as Recommendation, the
  W3C Process focuses on those changes to a technical report that
  might affect the conformance of content or deployed software."

  Seems like it can be deleted now.

- 7.6 W3C Recommendation

  "The Director must announce the provisional approval of a Request
  for publication of a W3C Recommendation to the Advisory Committee,"

  I agree the Director must provide rationale for overriding formal
  objections. The Director can do so in the Director's decision. But
  we should not add a 14-day waiting period after the close of PR
  review. There has never been an appeal of a Recommendation
  decision. So the 14 days will almost never serve any purpose. If
  there is ever an appeal we can deal with it then.

  Please do not include this requirement to announce provisional
  approval.

- 7.9 Rescinding a W3C Recommendation

  I still believe this section is confusing. See my suggested changes
  from December:
  http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-w3process/2013Dec/0043.html


--
Ian Jacobs <ij@w3.org>      http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs
Tel:                       +1 718 260 9447

Received on Tuesday, 11 February 2014 05:41:16 UTC