Defining "incubation" - was Re: WICG Incubation vs CSSWG Process

> I think it's really difficult to have any kind of conversation without a fair degree of common understanding what the words even mean.
> If there is an especially ambiguous understanding of what is meant by incubation (and there seems to be), then _that_ seems like something
> we should work to clear that up ASAP, before continuing other sorts of discussions that require that.  How can we do that?

Good point.  I propose looking at what some comparable organizations require to turn proposals into official projects.  For example, the Apache Foundation has a very well defined incubation process that is mandatory before some contributed code becomes a “Top Level Project”.  See
http://incubator.apache.org/incubation/

In that document, think of “Podling” as analogous to Community Group and a “Top Level Project” (TLP) as analogous to a Working Group, and “subproject” as a spec in a Supergroup such as CSS.

I would not advocate W3C creating all the process and board-level reviews that Apache has done, but the graduation requirements from Podling to TLP http://incubator.apache.org/incubation/Incubation_Policy.html#Graduating+from+the+Incubator   are worth careful consideration.  These requirements, edited to remove the Apache-process ones and translated to W3C-speak include:


·         It is a “worthy and healthy” project (addresses real world problems in an implementable way)

·         There are royalty-free IPR promises from likely patent holders in the area

·         There is an active and diverse community developing the spec and hoping to use it in the real world

·         The project is not highly dependent on a single contributor

·         Demonstrated ability to tolerate and resolve conflict within the community

·         Implementation plans are developed and socialized with the community

·         Has a synergistic relationship with other W3C entities (relevant WGs, the TAG, the team Architecture and Strategy functions …)

What other standards or OSS organizations have a formal description of “incubation” we might learn from?

From: Brian Kardell <bkardell@gmail.com>
Date: Tuesday, December 27, 2016 at 6:39 AM
To: fantasai <fantasai.lists@inkedblade.net>
Cc: Ojan Vafai <ojan@chromium.org>, Michael Champion <Michael.Champion@microsoft.com>, "public-w3process@w3.org" <public-w3process@w3.org>
Subject: 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<mailto:fantasai.lists@inkedblade.net>

[snip]

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...)

This is why my earlier comments about there seeming to be disagreement about what we are talking about.  FWIW, this does not fit the meaning of incubation of anything I have advocated for nor how I have seen anything work so far in WICG.  Nothing in incubation should ship into production natively.  I would actually consider this a thing that incubation is there to help prevent.  Nothing should prevent the WGs review of anything in incubation either, in fact, WG members can/should participate in incubation if they have interest IMO.

I'm not trying to be argumentative here I'm just stressing that I think it's really difficult to have any kind of conversation without a fair degree of common understanding what the words even mean.  If there is an especially ambiguous understanding of what is meant by incubation (and there seems to be), then _that_ seems like something we should work to clear that up ASAP, before continuing other sorts of discussions that require that.  How can we do that?



--
Brian Kardell :: @briankardell :: hitchjs.com<http://hitchjs.com/>