Re: Followup to "Supergroups" message to AC Forum

> On Jun 20, 2016, at 13:51 , Daniel Glazman <daniel.glazman@disruptive-innovations.com> wrote:
> 
> On 20/06/2016 22:41, David Singer wrote:
> 
>>> On Jun 20, 2016, at 12:41 , Carine Bournez <carine@w3.org> wrote:
>>>> Please note
>>>> such Groups already deal with Deliverables in a way that is not entirely
>>>> in line with the Process since they usually don't officially amend
>>>> Charters to start a new work.
>> 
>> They cannot (and must not) produce something that gets under the patent policy without doing so.  Obviously, all groups are free to discuss the future, and so on.
> 
> In pure theory, yes. In practice, we all know this is not how it
> too often goes for new work items appearing during the course of
> a charter. Work almost always start unchartered, happens in the
> mailing-list of the WG, takes WG time during calls and ftfs
> and remains an Editor's Draft the time needed to become "cleaner"
> and is in legal limbos. We'll have some day a big problem...
> 
> In practice again, like it or not, unchartered spec work starts because
> _Members_ cannot and don't want to wait. This is again a question of
> adapting our rules to our practice.


As I said, you can discuss anything, and should feel free to. We don’t need charters to say that; this is simply a question for the chairs of keeping the group focused and spending time on worthwhile activities.  Exploration, and so on, should be part of that.  What you cannot do is place members under a burden for something that is outside the charter.

The AB has been asking (for a year or two now) that re-chartering to add a deliverable or other simple steps should be simple and easy. Charters should reflecvt reality.

I have long been unhappy about putting dates into the charters over which we have no control.  That includes going from ‘we need to do something about X’ to havign a working draft, and also the ‘we have a spec. but we now need tests and interoperable implementations’.  Those are not under w3c’s control.

Dave Singer

singer@mac.com

Received on Tuesday, 21 June 2016 12:18:10 UTC