Call for review: Process 2020

[My apologies, resending fixing reference #8]

Dear Advisory Committee Representative, Chairs, or member of the public,


The W3C Advisory Board, supported by W3C management, is forwarding a proposed Process 2020 draft [1] to the Advisory Committee for consideration, and requests comments ASAP and by *31 May 2020*.

[1] https://w3c.github.io/w3process/


The major changes in this document are outlined in the changes section [2], together with a complete diff from Process 2019 to this Process 2020 proposal, as well as partial diffs to help review the changes smaller and more digestible chunks [3]

[2] https://w3c.github.io/w3process/#changes-2019
[3] https://www.w3.org/wiki/Process2020#Process_Document_Edits


This is a significant update to our Process, and deserves careful review. 

It introduces enhancements to the REC track to allow easier updating of RECs and CRs, to strengthen the patent policy, and to provide a Living Standards capability as a native capability of the W3C Recommendation Track, while maintaining the same review and quality requirements that it currently possesses. There is an in depth explainer about the changes affecting the Recommendation track [4].

[4] https://www.w3.org/wiki/Process2020


This message initiates a comment period. 

While the period closes on 31 May 2020, overlapping our upcoming Virtual Advisory Committee Meeting, we nonetheless request you comment as soon as possible (to facilitate discussion and response preparation).

After the comment period the W3C Process CG and the AB will finalize a revision, which we anticipate sending for formal AC review and approval in June.


As part of our Virtual AC meeting [5], we will have a recorded summary of Process 2020 and the associated changes in the Patent Policy posted, with an associated 90-minute Q&A session to discuss this process revision.

[5] https://www.w3.org/2020/05/AC/Overview.html

The (geographically distributed) editors of the Process document, Florian Rivoal <florian@rivoal.net> and Elika Etemad <fantasai@inkedblade.net>, have also offered to answer questions and are willing to schedule calls (in any timezone) with anyone who would feel that their questions or concerns would be easier to communicate through synchronous discussion. (Florian in particular is also fluent in both French and Japanese, if those languages are more comfortable.)


Specific comments on this revision of the Process are best filed as Github issues, or even pull requests, at the Process CG github site [6].
[6] https://github.com/w3c/w3process/issues

More general discussion and comments should be sent to public-w3process@w3.org [7] or to process-issues@w3.org (Member-only archive).
[7] https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-w3process/

(You may discuss your comments on any other list, such as w3c-ac-forum@w3.org (member-only), as long as you send the comments to one of the W3process lists above and copy that list in the discussion.)


This revision of the process has important implications for the W3C Patent Policy, for which there is a companion update being worked on in the Patents and Standards Interest Group (PSIG), which is also under review [8].
[8] https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-ac-members/2020AprJun/0006.html

Note also that the Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct is normatively referenced from our process, and it too has a revision under review [9] since March 12.
[9] https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-ac-members/2020JanMar/0034.html


The Advisory Board handles Process evolution 'in the open', in the Process Community Group [10], and we encourage members of the community to join to help shepherd process evolution.

[10] https://www.w3.org/community/w3process/


Thank you for your careful scrutiny of this important update.


For Jeff Jaffe, Chair, W3C Advisory Board,
David Singer, Chair, W3C Process Community Group, 
Elika Etemad, Editor, W3C Process Document,
Florian Rivoal, Editor, W3C Process Document;
Coralie Mercier, Head of W3C Marketing & Communications

--
Coralie Mercier  -  W3C Marketing & Communications -  https://www.w3.org
mailto:coralie@w3.org +337 810 795 22 https://www.w3.org/People/Coralie/

Received on Wednesday, 8 April 2020 18:31:48 UTC