Re: CfC: publish WD of XHR; deadline November 29

On 12/03/2012 01:44 PM, Charles McCathie Nevile wrote:
> Just a reminder: this group is a forum for discussion of technical
> specifications, and follows the existing W3C process. Discussion of what
> process *should* be is off topic here.

I find it unfortunate that you try to cut off discussions relevant to 
technical issues with our specifications by calling them "process" 
discussions.

>  From my understanding reasons for the practice include the following:
>   - W3C aims to provide stable specifications that can be used as
> references which won't change. This is a general underpinning of its
> policy for specifications published as "TR" documents. Making a
> normative reference to an unstable document obviously defeats this purpose.

The argument that "TR" documents are in some way more "stable" than 
other documents is simply fallacious. This has been discussed at length 
here and in other venues; I won't go into it again.

Furthermore, I should point out that referencing the TR draft of WebIDL 
would (if anybody tried to implement the TR spec and its TR references; 
nobody does, of course) lead to a specification that is not 
implementable. The WebIDL used in XHR is not valid according to the 19 
April 2012 CR of WebIDL.

>   - A couple of years ago, W3C was granted PAS submission status, after
> applying for this at the urging of many of its members and of non-member
> consumers of its specifications. This relies on lots of things, but one
> of them is a certain clarity of process. ISO accepted W3C's process. I
> don't know if they would be prepared to accept that of the WHAT-WG. I
> don't even know anyone who cares enough to find out. In the meantime, I
> suspect this is another reason not to make normative references to the
> WHAT-WG's work and in particular to unstable documents.

I do not see how this is relevant; I though the process was clear, and 
that it did not censor references to particular organizations.

>>> That's not in the W3C pub rules or a good idea.
>
> It isn't written there, although it has been applied for as long as I
> can remember (which stretches back to before "pubrules" was a document).

I would love to hear examples of where such a rule was applied before 
the W3C started co-publishing WHATWG specifications; in particular, 
cases where the W3C publication was significantly out-of-date in 
comparison to the alternative.

> To the extent W3C thinks this should apply, they should indeed write it
> in there, since it has recently become contentious.

As long as the rule doesn't exist, one can hardly expect editors to 
comply with it. If we expect editors to simply "do as we did before", 
we'd be stuck with DOM2-style specifications; I think we all agree that 
would not be good for interoperability.

> Pubrules doesn't, as far as I know, prohibit "f-bombs" in specs. W3C
> working group members, including editors, are expected to be socially
> competent adults, which is a catch-all for what would otherwise be an
> endless set of statements like "people who know not to use the 'f word'
> in a spec even without a written rule". (If I recall correctly this is
> in section 3.1 of the process document. It certainly isn't worth looking
> up).

I find this comparison, in particular, to be unhelpful and rather rude. 
Nobody is suggesting using expletives in specifications. The only 
parallel I can imagine with the current situation is that some people 
seem offended by the existence of the WHATWG, and for some reason want 
to make sure no W3C publication ever mentions it. I had hoped we had 
been able to come to a somewhat more mature relationship between this WG 
and the WHATWG after the recent discussions about attribution, but 
changes like this make me lose confidence in the goals of the W3C Team 
and the chairs of this WG on this matter.

I maintain my technical objections to the publication.

HTH
Ms2ger

Received on Monday, 3 December 2012 13:08:17 UTC