Re: W3C Process 2016: Charter extensions and 60 days publication blackouts

On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 11:05:17AM -0700, David Singer wrote:
[...]
> > Currently if a WG starts a new FPWD while its rechartering is already at AC review stage,
> > the new FPWD is not covered in the new charter unless it is mentioned explicitly as
> > deliverable. If that FPWD was NOT mentioned as a deliverable in the active charter, it 
> > is not possible to publish it anyway.
> 
> I am not sure, but are you mixing up "formal adoption of drafts that are already ???under??? the patent policy??? with "what work is in scope for the working groups, as documented by their charters???? We???re only dealing with the former here; we presume that the work is in scope for both WGs.

I presume that too. But scope and list of deliverables is different.
(I'll try to continue on your example below)


> > So I'm not sure there's a good reason for that restriction, really, The charter under 
> > review will now include all documents published (new requirement on charters) and the 
> > future deliverables (as before).
> 
> But it won???t, that???s the problem. Let???s say the Fruit WG is chartered to produce specs for any kind of Fruit. Later, someone wants to do a Zucchini spec. and someone claims that they are vegetables, not fruit. To deal with this, a new Charter is written to put veg in scope, the group will be called ???Fruit and Veg WG??? and Zucchini and the squash family are mentioned as possible deliverables.
> 

IMHO, the first question was not about the name and scope, but whether the 
Zucchini spec was in the list of deliverables of the first charter.

> But the group is also working on Oranges, and Bananas.  In scope for both charters. We want to avoid the following sequence:
> 
> 1. Fruit WG forms
> 2. Fruit WG issues an FPWD of "Oranges and Citrus???.
> 3. The new Fruit and Veg Charter is written and sent to review. It says (correctly) that there has been a FPWD of the Oranges and Citrus WD and an associated exclusion period.
> 4. Fruit WG issues a new FPWD of ???Bananas WD???, triggering an exclusion period.

For that to happen, the Fruit WG charter had to list Bananas WD as a planned
deliverable. So not carrying this over to the new Fruit and Veg WG would be
a mistake, I believe.

> 5. Fruit and Veg WG forms and there is a call for participation against the charter, but that charter doesn???t mention Bananas WD as having been adopted. New members are not informed, by the charter, of the ongoing Bananas work that???s under the PP.

Let's assume Bananas spec was listed in Fruit WG deliverables, and also in
the Fruit and Veg (without a specific ref draft since it was not published
yet at the beginning of the AC review). When the Bananas FPWD is published,
a 150d exclusion period starts. But it will not be completed until after the
start of the new group, and participants will even leave the Fruit WG (replaced
by the new WG) before the 90d limit that triggers a PP commitment. So for 
this Bananas spec to have a correct patent protection in the Fruit and Veg
WG, it would need a CfE there. So I believe that the 60d blackout does
not help, a CfE would be needed anyway. I'm proposing to remove that 
restriction. If the process needs to be clear that in this particular case 
a CfE will be sent on republication by the Fruit and Veg WG, then we could
have specific wording for that [btw, that's what we used to do when 
moving specs from a WG to another until now.]

> > If a document, published during the review period 
> > or not, was omitted, then too bad, you're good for another rechartering. 
> 
> Sorry, are you saying that, having just got Fruit and Veg WG approved and formed, I must immediately re-charter it?  Isn???t that more tedious than simply holding the Bananas FPWD until Fruit and Veg forms, and issuing it then? Honestly, the delay is a formal one: we???re not saying that Fruit WG can???t work on Bananas, they can, in working group (not public) drafts; they just can???t issue the FPWD, that???s all. Hold off on that until you???re working under the new charter.


If the Bananas spec was not listed in deliverables, that's not good 
to publish it. That's orthogonal to rechartering. That'd be a mistake to
work on deliverables without AC member review.

> > If it was mentioned as a future deliverable in the charter under review, but published 
> > during the review (unlikely, I think), then the triggered CfE won't be completed until 
> > the end of the WG. The proposed 60d delay should really be a >90d (delay for
> > leaving the group without commitment), or no delay + a new CfE starts with the new
> > group (as we do with a group change, latest draft is a Ref Draft). Currently, implicit 
> > continuation means CfE continues, and new members have to exclude upon joining.
> 
> The ???implicit??? status is what we???re trying to make more explicit. And as I say, the 60 days is to give adequate warning to members potentially joining Fruit and Veg WG who were not members of Fruit WG.


So you're saying that it will be no longer possible to adopt a spec from 
another WG without a 60d warning + AC review? What about spec that are 
published jointly with a 2nd WG during their development?

> >> b) For anyone joining this newly chartered group at its beginning, they might wish to file an exclusion on such drafts. If they were members of the originating group, they are aware of it and have been tracking it, but there may be new members. Because the list of drafts is in the charter, they can prepare any exclusion they need to file if given enough time; for various complex reasons, we chose 60 days as the minimum interval for the newcomers to be allowed to think. Otherwise newcomers might be forced to delay their join until after the group ahs formed and started work.
> > 
> > 
> > If we apply a CfE for any FPWD published during charter review (i.e. mentioned as a 
> > deliverable in the charter, but has been published in the meantime), newcomers have the
> > 90d delay to leave, and 150d exclusion period. They don't need to delay.
> 
> I think you may be interpreting the patent policy, and that your interpretation may not be universally shared.  (The proposed changes carefully avoid answering the question of whether Fruit and Veg WG is a ???new??? working group or not, which is a theological question that has occupied great minds for far too long.)

Not interpreting. I'm actually describing the current implementation of
the PP: when a spec that has already been published by group A as a FPWD is
republished by group B (jointly or not with A), this group B receives a 
CfE for it (that's the only place where Ref Draft is not FPWD, as I said 
earlier in this thread). so Fruit and Veg WG could get a CfE when 
republishing the Bananas WD. That would avoid the blackout and make sure that
the CfE is really completed, while 60d is not ensuring commitments for FPWD
(it does for CRs).

>From a WG point of view, I think that removing the ability to publish any
FPWD nor CR during the last 2 or 3 months of a charter is not reasonable.

Received on Tuesday, 30 August 2016 20:04:17 UTC