Re: IG charter: status and schedule

Hi Charles,

Thank you for your active involvement!

On 2010/09/23, at 2:02, Charles McCathieNevile wrote:

> On Wed, 22 Sep 2010 12:01:13 -0400, FUNAHASHI Yosuke <yfuna@tomo-digi.co.jp 
> > wrote:
>
>> Actually, I would like to speed-up the process as well.:)
>>
>> The most time-consuming process will be `Review by AC Rep.'.
>
> Well, that depends on how fast we do our own review of the charter -  
> if we take 5 weeks we might be the slowest step ourselves.
>
>> I've heard from Kaz that, theoretically, it can take infinite time
>> if any of AC Reps continue to reject the charter.  So we gave
>> the process a month as our target of effort.
>>
>> I would like to ask Kaz about the minimum duration of the process
>> the W3C process document requires.  I think it would be the best
>> case we can expect.
>
> I think that it can be done in 4 weeks - and could be done alongside  
> the review by this group to speed up the process. If the proposed  
> charter is submitted next week it can still be modified as a result  
> of comments either by the AC or by this group.

I agree with you that we should speed-up all the activities that  
constitute the whole process from creating the charter to finalizing  
it.  Time is always against us and everything has its time.  As I  
talked to Giuseppe in this ML yesterday, my review and modification  
for your initial draft charter will finish this week. So If anybody on  
the ML has no objection to submit the modified draft charter, things  
will be able to proceed a little bit quickly as you mentioned.

Umm... because this is my first time to join a discussion on W3C  
mailing list, I can't tell what extent I can rely on the so-called  
"implication in sentences".  So I would like to write my response a  
little bit more directly.

If you mean that my modification itself should be done after the  
initial draft charter proposed, I am sorry to say that it is not  
acceptable for me from the viewpoint of creating successful Interest  
Group.  I would like to explain the reason.

The name and the main topic of the IG is the "Web and TV".  So the  
good involvement of the TV industry or broadcasters in the discussion  
on the IG and the following related WG is the key to success.  The  
content of the initially proposed IG charter is very important for  
broadcasters whether it is modifiable or not.  Where we (decide to)  
start from has significant meaning for them.  You may laugh this.  But  
this is the mentality of the broadcasters.  From this viewpoint, I  
think the initial draft charter needs substantial improvements and now  
I am working with it.  If we must spend several months to take care of  
them, we should just ignore them.  But if it costs only a few weeks,  
we had better do it.

In any case my modification will be finished in a few days.

> In any case the IG is designed to be fairly uncontroversial - it  
> deliberately defers complex technical and design discussions, along  
> with taking decisions where there isn't clear consensus, to a  
> relevant working group. The IG is more of a place for collecting and  
> recording the range of requirements and issues, to make sure that  
> working groups aren't missing important information.

Generally speaking, dealing with requirements is the most difficult  
process in both software engineering and standardization, especially  
when it concerns multiple industries or multiple domain knowledges.  I  
know "Web and TV" is one of the most challenging and difficult topic  
in that sense.  I also think it is the very reason why so many project  
in the past about this topic substantially failed.

So we should treat this process carefully, or we should prepare for  
it.  For example, in the workshop, the meaning of the some of the  
important technical, business and social science's terms had  
significant differences according to which industry the person is  
mainly working.  That prevented the discussions to be more fruitful.   
Some discussions were bounded by it in unbearably naive level.  In my  
opinion, unveiling and showing this issue - the issue that resides in  
communication or discussion about "Web on TV" or "Web and TV" among  
multiple industries - to the participants is one of the important  
achievement of the workshop.  We had better learn from the workshop.

I think one of the good methodology for successfully managing this  
kind of situation is 1) to build our minimum dictionary or terminology  
specialized for our discussion, 2) to reach the agreement upon it, 3)  
to write and read requirements based on it.

What do you think?

Regards,
Yosuke

# I will reply about the membership issue later.


>> As for the first half of my draft schedule, I think we had better  
>> discuss
>> several topics about the organization of the IG in this period.
> ...
>>  * the IG should be public or W3C members only?
>>
>> I remember that, in the workshop, someone said that "Interest Group
>> could be public" but the other person said that "Interest Group also
>> requires W3C membership to participate in it".
>
> An interest group can be open to anyone - and indeed the charter  
> proposal allows anyone to join the interest group. But any work to  
> be done would happen in a working group (either new or existing).  
> This way we can get the widest possible participation in devloping  
> and explaining requirements, and technical work is done in the  
> context of W3C's patent policy, working with experts in Web  
> technology as well as TV industry.
>
> Where appropriate, I think it is more effective to do work in an  
> existing working group. E.g. rather than having a seperate group to  
> define TV-oriented device APIs, it makes sense to take advantage of  
> the expertise on defining device APIs for the Web that is in the DAP  
> group. Naturally the group can also recommend the creation of a new  
> working group for items that haven't so far been in the scope of W3C  
> work.
>
> There is a separate question about whether the work should take  
> place in publi, or in a member-only group. For the Interest Group I  
> think it is much more effective for discussions to be in public. In  
> any case, this is important to make technical work more efficient.
>
>> What do you think?
>>
>>> In any case I think we can start with some preliminary work even  
>>> before the charter is finalized so that we are able to start  
>>> immediately as the charter is ready.
>>> What do you think?
>>
>> Yes.  I agree with you.
>
> cheers
>
> Chaals
>
> -- 
> Charles McCathieNevile  Opera Software, Standards Group
>    je parle français -- hablo español -- jeg lærer norsk
> http://my.opera.com/chaals       Try Opera: http://www.opera.com
>

Received on Thursday, 23 September 2010 17:05:36 UTC