Director-less W3C

Hello all,

the fate of W3C without Tim has been on my mind long before leaving W3C, so
I'll give my 2 cents on the recent proposal.

I'm looking at

https://services.w3.org/htmldiff?doc1=https%3A%2F%2Fw3c.github.io%2Fw3process%2F&doc2=https%3A%2F%2Fw3c.github.io%2Fw3process%2Fdirector-free

I'm concerned by two things:
 - the added complexity with two new "committees"
 - the power now residing in the CEO hands.

On the second point, there are now hundreds of references to the CEO and
Team as decision-makers and with the Team under full control of the CEO,
this effectively puts all the process decisions into one person's hands,
which could become an issue in the future if this person is not able to
handle all this power correctly.

I think we should try to categorize the current Director's functions along
their level of Web technicality, draw a line, and give the most technical
pieces to someone else than the CEO. Not sure to whom, maybe not a single
person. You could argue that the CEO could delegate these (or whatever)
pieces and create such a Technical Director function but I'd rather see
this implemented transparently based on due process.

On the first point, new committees, if there is such a TD function, then no
need for a new W3C Council providing a higher authority for some of the
ex-Director/new CEO decisions. Given the AC appeal mechanism already in
place, and if the main technical items are separated, this should not be
necessary.

Same idea for the new TAG committee created to select the "Director" TAG
seats: it should not be necessary with a appealable Technical Director
function selecting them. And it would be better than a pure TAG co-optation
procedure..

So IMO having ome sort of  Technical Director function, or a Web
Architectural Board, would effectively solve both the CEO power
concentration and the added committees issue. Maybe this function could be
implemented by a trio: one staff, one TAG, one AB, selected by each
constituency for a given period, or maybe just one person, e.g. the chair
of the TAG (since it's for Technical stuff). Or maybe by one TAG and a W3C
CTO (from staff).


Anyway, I also think someone should be assigned to do a quick external
study on how other relevant SDOs implement their own Technical Director
function/Arbitrage, and also how organizations (non-profit or commercial)
deal with their structural issues when the Creator (of the technology and
the organization) leaves.

Take care.