RE: fixing process regression related to typo fixes

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jeff Jaffe [mailto:jeff@w3.org]
> Sent: Monday, September 12, 2016 4:35 PM
> To: David Singer <singer@mac.com>
> Cc: Stephen Zilles <szilles@adobe.com>; L. David Baron
> <dbaron@dbaron.org>; public-w3process@w3.org; Tantek Çelik
> <tantek@cs.stanford.edu>
> Subject: Re: fixing process regression related to typo fixes
> 
> 
> 
> On 9/12/2016 5:21 PM, David Singer wrote:
> >> 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.h

> >>> tml 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.
> 
> I agree with your Summary.
> 
> For me, there is a known certainty (the last two years) that the current system
> hurts agility (vignettes from Elika, David, Tantek, and PLH).
> There is a theoretical corner case that the previous system has a tiny patent
> exposure.  For me certain agility trumps theoretical tiny patent exposure.

I am detecting, so far, significant support for loosening the requirements on "Editorial Changes" (Note this is not just typos; it includes all textual changes that are deemed by the Working Group to not affect conformance to the specification.)

It appears to me that the main argument for this is that (1) if the Working Group does not believe it changed conformance who is better at doing that AND (2) it seems unlikely that people will actually do a patent search against editorial changes.

I, too, liked the idea that Patent Licensing Commitments do not change for Edited Recommendations (because there has been no Disclosure Opportunity since they did not go through another CR (nor PER).

To move the discussion to a concrete change proposal, I suggest the following:

Current:
   Editorial changes to a Recommendation require no technical review of the proposed 
   changes. A Working Group, provided there are no votes against the resolution to 
   publish may request publication of a Proposed Recommendation or W3C may publish 
   a Proposed Recommendation to make this class of change without passing through 
   earlier maturity levels. Such publications may be called a Proposed Edited Recommendation

Replacement:
   Editorial changes to a Recommendation require no technical review of the proposed 
   changes. A Working Group, provided there are no votes against the resolution to 
   publish may request publication of an Edited Recommendation or W3C may publish 
   an Edited Recommendation to make this class of change without passing through 
   earlier maturity levels. 

I have deleted the sentence, " Such publications may be called a Proposed Edited Recommendation” as being redundant after the change, especially since another suggested change has changed the MAY to an "are".

I think it would be useful to say that the version number should be updated, but since such publications are dated, the new date may suffice to distinguish it from prior versions.

    Note there is a sentence lower in the subsection that the above sentence on Editorial changes occurs in that says,

    When requesting the publication of an edited Recommendation as described 
    in this section, in addition to   meeting the requirements for the relevant 
    maturity level, a Working Group

       *  must show that the changes to the document have received wide review, and
       *  should address all recorded errata.

Having had wide review of the Edited Recommendation prior to publication seems like a good thing. For an Edited Recommendation that is only doing editorial changes, it may not be possible to address all errata since some of those may involve substantive changes. Perhaps the second bullet should read,
      *  should address all recorded errata, or if only Editorial Changes are made, 
          all errata that can be address by an Editorial Change.

Steve Z

Received on Tuesday, 13 September 2016 19:53:08 UTC