Revisions to Chapter 7 of the W3C Process Document

Dear AC Representative, WG Chair or member of the public,

The Advisory Board proposed revisions to Chapter 7 (Technical Report 
Development Process) of the W3C Process in a Last Call issued on 24 Oct 
2013[1]. The goal of the revisions is to make the process simpler to 
understand, crisper to execute, yet still consistent with the patent 
policy, by enabling process steps to happen in parallel. Please review 
[1] for the history of this development process.

This Last Call raised over 75 issues[2] all of which have been reviewed 
and responded to, some with needed changes and others without a change. 
In the latter category one important topic that was raised in more than 
one issue was the question as to whether the proposed changes were, in 
fact, an improvement. The Task Force that has helped drive this work 
feels that the answer is definitely yes. But, the facts will only be 
clear once the new Process is deployed.

Some Working Groups have responded that some of the steps, such as Last 
Call, that are being eliminated were and are likely to continue to be 
important to them. For these groups, the current Process Document as 
well as the proposed new document allow a Group's Charter to have 
provisions beyond what the Process requires as long as they are not in 
conflict with the Process. This allows Groups that wish to retain such 
steps to do so in their next Charter revision.

It is now time to issue a second Last Call. The goal of this Last Call 
is to validate that issues have been dealt with correctly. This time, 
the entire Process document [3], not just Chapter 7 [4], is being Last 
Called. This is done to insure that the proposed Chapter 7 is consistent 
with the rest of the Process Document. No changes have been made to the 
Process document other than in Chapter 7. It is our hope that commenters 
will restrict their comments to Chapter 7 or its relationship to the 
rest of the Process Document. The Process Task Force is aware that there 
are issues with other parts of the Process Document and expects that 
these will be addressed once the Chapter 7 revisions are adopted. 
Comments on parts other than those connected to Chapter 7 will be noted, 
but may not receive a response during this review period.  Please 
provide comments by close of business, 21 April 2014.

Comments and requests for clarification are welcome.  This work is done 
in public and the public-w3process@w3.org 
<mailto:public-w3process@w3.org> <mailto:public-w3process@w3.org> 
<mailto:public-w3process@w3.org> mailing list is the best place to send 
comments and questions.

Next Steps

After responding to comments on this second Last Call draft, the 
resulting document will be sent to the AC for a normal AC Review. 
Assuming that that review is successful, the proposed Process Document 
will become the 2014 W3C Process Document on completion of the review 
period.

Because there are significant changes to the Process, the new Process 
will be phased in over a 2 year period. The proposal for deploying the 
new 2014 Process is as follows:

As of the Director's announcement of the approval of a new 2014 Process 
Document:

1. All Technical Reports at maturity levels prior to Recommendation 
published after the adoption of the revised Process will state whether 
they were developed under the 2005 Process or under the new 2014 
Process. This requirement will cease when there are no further Technical 
Reports being developed under the 2005 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.

Jeff Jaffe, Chair, W3C Advisory Board
Charles McCathie-Nevile, Editor, W3C Process Document
Steve Zilles, Chair, W3C Technical Report Development Task Force

[1] https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/chairs/2013OctDec/0075.html 
<https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/chairs/2013OctDec/0075.html>

[2] http://www.w3.org/community/w3process/track/issues 
<http://www.w3.org/community/w3process/track/issues> (those with 
Document Life Cycle (ch 7) as the "Product")

[3] https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/AB/raw-file/default/cover.html

[4] https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/AB/raw-file/5508dec95a6a/tr.html