Re: fixing process regression related to typo fixes

> On Sep 12, 2016, at 11:47 , Jeff Jaffe <jeff@w3.org> wrote:
> 
> 
>> I do believe that the change in the Process 2014 document was a conscious choice and not an accident. The main argument for the change was that can anyone tell (without review) whether an editorial change is truly editorial. That is why the all text changes became reviewable. This argument is stated in more detail in
>>   https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-w3process/2014Oct/0145.html
>> from Wayne Carr which is a response to Elika's message that you point to above. Wayne suggests several other ways to get the necessary review, but does not believe that they are improvements.
>> 
>> Any change in this area should have wider discussion prior to changing the process.
> 
> I think David's issue is important and I would encourage you to entertain such a wider discussion during your TPAC presentation. Let's hear what the Membership has to say!
> 

The whole question of how we verify that a change is ‘merely editorial’ is tricky. People write the dangdest patents (e.g. one I recall being told of only applied if the bits in a structure were in a specific order). Without detailed patent searches for everything, one can never be *sure* that an edit hasn’t changed encumbrances, I fear.

I wonder how many on the AC will actually open a Proposed Edited Rec when the changes are believed to be editorial, and check? Are they more or less likely to know than the working group participants?

Perhaps it’s more important to say that there is a chance for the WG members and their AC Reps to object to a proposed edited rec., and if there is no objection, it’s published? If there IS objection, somehow we’d have to decide as a community whether the edit truly is ‘substantive’, and I am not sure how to do that. Presumably the objector has a good reason...

I am intrigued by Wayne’s suggestion that the license commitment of an Edited Recommendation be exactly the same as the Recommendation that it edited, as this protects the IPR owners from accidentally introducing a newly licensed thing unintentionally. On the other hand it leaves implementers implementing something which has accidentally incorporated an unlicensed thing. I think that this effect would be, if it happened, worked out in the courts, and I think we’d best be silent about it.

Summary: I would be happy to revert to pre-2014 as long as we discuss it. The reason I am ok with revert is that it’s lighterweight, and we didn’t suffer much under the previous regime.  But only as long as we discuss.

Dave Singer

singer@mac.com

Received on Monday, 12 September 2016 21:21:33 UTC