Re: WICG Incubation vs CSSWG Process

On 12/26/2016 08:27 PM, Ojan Vafai wrote:
>
>
> On Sat, Dec 24, 2016, 10:37 PM fantasai <fantasai.lists@inkedblade.net:
>
>>
>>     [2] Implementing and shipping a feature inherently restricts the CSSWG's
>>     ability to make changes or to reject a proposal: once it has embedded
>>     itself in the Web, a technological proposal cannot be rescinded. (Even
>>     once an implementer has an implementation that hasn't shipped, they are
>>     often loathe to change it.) If part of the WICG process is to implement
>>     and/or ship a proposal, that automatically shortcuts the CSSWG's subsequent
>>     discretion. So if the CSSWG's involvement is solicited only at the end of
>>     such a process, then it is effectively not solicited at all. (The CSSWG
>>     has been dealing with the fallout of this kind of "incubation"--see, e.g.
>>     Transforms, Animations, and Transitions--for awhile now; I'm not really
>>     interested in encoding the process of ship-first-review-later as the new
>>     "best practices of Web standardization".)
>
> In what ways was Transforms, Animations, and Transitions incubated before shipping?

There was rough agreement on a rough spec, details to be worked out
after shipping in production. This was done unintentionally due to
circumstances, but to the extent that incubation results in the same
thing--a spec without details worked out shipped in production--it
will result in a similar problem: difficulty in ironing out interop
due to compat restrictions with deployed content.

Whether or not incubation involves that step depends on who you're
asking. I'm merely pointing out that to the extent that it would
involve that, it would circumvent the WG's ability to "review", as
Michael put it. (There's a reason the point is a footnote...)

> For what it's worth, as a big proponent of incubation, I agree that there
> are kinks to work out on what happens to a spec once it transitions to a
> working group. Might be messy at first because we don't have the experience
> to know what works well yet. I'm confident we can figure out a good set of
> best practices over time though.

My opinion is more that there shouldn't be a "transition" to a WG
in the sense of handing over responsibility, but that the WG and
the incubation group should be jointly involved throughout the
spec's lifetime. Making transitions a formal, *legal* process makes
it harder to establish best practices with fluidity.

~fantasai

Received on Tuesday, 27 December 2016 12:55:01 UTC