Re: Director-less W3C

On 1/5/2020 8:19 AM, Daniel Dardailler wrote:
>
> Hello Jeff
>
> I've added an issue, couldn't find how to label it with the 
> "director-free" tag though so I put it in the title.
I added the tag.
>
> Wrt to the single person accountability, I understand the aim, but I 
> think there is not enough distance between persons in our community to 
> justify such a constraint, vs. the qualitative gain of having a few 
> specialized accountable persons.
>
> It would be interesting, as a thought exercise, to re-run - with the 
> various replacement models in mind, the few cases in W3C history where 
> Tim had to "really" act as Web architectural arbiter, having heard all 
> concerns and advises, and deciding publicly as a person, engaging his 
> name, like for EME, Patent Policy.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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> On Sun, Jan 5, 2020 at 1:40 PM Jeff Jaffe <jeff@w3.org 
> <mailto:jeff@w3.org>> wrote:
>
>     Thanks, Daniel.  Interesting points-of-view.  We've had some of
>     these discussions and I similarly share some of the concerns about
>     concentration of authority with the CEO.  Most reviewers have
>     taken the point of view that it is good to have a single
>     accountable person (who would delegate as you suggest), but your
>     alternative is also credible and should be discussed as well.
>
>     I'm a bit concern that your concerns raised in an email could get
>     lost.  It might be more effective to raise an issue in the
>     process-CG GH repository [1] with the label "director-free".  That
>     will ensure that this gets looked at through the process revision
>     exercise.
>
>     Jeff
>
>     [1] https://github.com/w3c/w3process/issues
>
>     On 1/5/2020 7:23 AM, Daniel Dardailler wrote:
>>     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.
>>