RE: process.next wish list

> Any temporary rules shouldn't allow any TR publications after charter expiration, unless W3C wants to state that the patent policy applies to work done in WGs with expired charters.
>  I wouldn't allow any work on specs  (or W3C should clarify whether the patent policy applies to WGs without a charter).  They should work exclusively on a Charter, or on drafting an email asking for an extension :).

I agree with most of the points here, but I wonder if we really need to put this in the *process* document or trust the Director and Team to adopt and execute appropriate *policies* to ensure that we don't have this problem in the future?  I lean toward the latter.  There has been a problem in the past with WGs running long past their chartered dates, the AC and AB have made it clear that we find this unacceptable, and W3C management seemed to be promising to keep a closer eye on this.  Let's give them a year or so to make the problem go away, and if it hasn't, THEN we can talk about tweaks to the process.


-----Original Message-----
From: Wayne Carr [mailto:wayne.carr@linux.intel.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 11:58 AM
To: David Singer
Cc: Tim Berners-Lee; W3C Process Community Group
Subject: Re: process.next wish list



On 2015-04-15 09:48, David Singer wrote:
>> On Apr 15, 2015, at 18:22 , Wayne Carr <wayne.carr@linux.intel.com> wrote:
>>
>>>> But I think that we need to get much better at our practices before we make this rule change. It's deplorable, but at the moment groups 'run off the end of the pier', let their charter expire, and only then start worrying about renewing it. If we were to introduce this rule today, when charter expiry is all too common, chaos and panic would ensue. I don't want to be in the position of the forced closure of a WG that we all agree should have been re-chartered and still operating. That would be ... embarrassing.
>>> Maybe where a group is "just" late, and has not for example actually taken on a wider scope of work, then the rechartering should be quick and easy.
>> Also, there doesn't need to be any running off the pier, all it takes 
>> for the Charter not to expire is an email from the Director to the AC 
>> extending the charter while they work to recharter.  If we adopted, 
>> the rule that groups are automatically closed when the charter 
>> expires now, we could encourage the Director to be generous with 
>> granting extensions for a while so WGs can adjust (to the notion of 
>> actually having to work under a charter).  (except for SysApps -- 
>> close it!!!)
>>
> The combination of the rules (a) at most one extension (b) at most 6 months per extension (c) groups close if they hit their expiry date; means that lax charter management will have groups running off the pier. Hence my desire to stop doing lax charter management that before we change the rules...(and we are on track to tighten up charter management, I believe).

A group can't do any kind of Charter at all in 6 months?  Not even a Charter that says they're going to spend a year figuring out what they should be doing?  And then they can recharter early if they figure out something new.

If we adopted both the policy to force closing WGs and also the limit of extensions to 6 months, we could have the extension limit not take effect until 2017 to give a long warning.  Instead, to be safe, we aren't adopting either :)

But, this isn't happening now anyway -- it was already rejected for this process revision.

Any temporary rules shouldn't allow any TR publications after charter expiration, unless W3C wants to state that the patent policy applies to work done in WGs with expired charters.  I wouldn't allow any work on specs  (or W3C should clarify whether the patent policy applies to WGs without a charter).  They should work exclusively on a Charter, or on drafting an email asking for an extension :).




>
> The case of a charter expiring and the group closing automatically 
> should be diagnostic that there was no-one left to turn out the 
> lights, and the motion sensor says to turn them off anyway.  (Are 
> there lights on piers?  I suppose so.  Yours for mixing metaphors!)

It could be the WG not deciding or unable to decide.  Staff for whatever reason choosing not to close the group (they can if they want to).  And the AC having no ability to do anything about it. I'm working on a lights, pier, lighthouse analogy for that :)



>
>
> David Singer
> Manager, Software Standards, Apple Inc.
>

Received on Wednesday, 15 April 2015 19:15:24 UTC