On Wed, Nov 2, 2016 at 3:49 PM, David Wood <david.wood@ephox.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Michael (and Tantek and Chris),
>
> On Thu, Nov 3, 2016 at 5:50 AM, Michael Champion <
> Michael.Champion@microsoft.com> wrote:
>>
>> > We need to the Task Force/Community Group to drive a broad,
>>
>> > fully formed market solution and recruit implementors to prove and/or
>>
>> > evolve to meet the reality of the marketplace.
>>
>>
>>
>> This is probably the crux of the disagreement on this thread: Should
>> W3C start by building standards and recruit implementers to make it a
>> marketplace reality, or should W3C provide a venue where implementers and
>> other players in real markets collaborate to iron out their differences to
>> improve interoperability, accessibility, security, etc.? I submit (and I
>> think Chris and Tantek agree) that the former approach might have been
>> successful in the early days of W3C, but there are few successful examples
>> of a standards-first approach in recent years. That’s why we push for
>> incubation-first - -build communities, get rough consensus and running code
>> first, then standardize what is successful.
>>
>>
>>
>> If there is rough consensus and running code around the proposed
>> verifiable claims data model already, then I for one just need a clearer
>> and more succinct guide to it than what the WG proposal offers.
>>
>
> The issue of whether the W3C should lead or follow is certainly a core
> disagreement between both the Team and the membership. The impact is felt
> whenever a WG is proposed. We cannot pretend that is resolved, nor do we
> have any reason to think that it will be resolved.
>
No, I think it's a disagreement among members, if I read your point
correctly. Mike said, and Tantek and I *DO* agree, that the approach of
standardizing ahead of implementation experience that the W3C took in the
past has not been very successful lately, and we should incubate more. I
wouldn't personally characterize that as a "follow" approach - I'd say it's
a "build evidence in incubation, then lock it down" approach. There's a
"weight of law" to a WG - a clear "we will deliver this deliverable, ON
THIS DATE" declaration - that I'd rather leave to defining when there's
good evidence the solution path is clear, is all. It's not "don't
participate until a clear winner has emerged," which is what "follow"
implies to me - it's "don't put yourself on a rocket ride to locking a
spec, until you're pretty sure it's going to be good." I've participated
in a few WGs that were effectively open-ended design commissions, and I'm
not sure those ended up working well.
There is another, parallel, concern which was quite evident at TPAC: How
> much relative power should the larger members have over the choice of WGs?
> Chris may say that he only has one vote, but clearly his vote counts for
> more. I find it difficult to believe that a WG will be created over the
> voiced objections of Mozilla, Google, and Microsoft.
>
Hmm. Can't say that; clearly, it seems building consensus for a WG
proposal is pretty powerful. To be clear - I don't even directly control
Google's vote; I'm an advisor, and I'm on this list directly based on my
role on the AB, not as Google's AC representative. My objections to this
all along have been of the form "show your work first," which is a
development methodology principle I believe we should strongly adopt, given
the history of W3C efforts that were spec-first. I would hope I *can*
convince others of the benefits of that methodology; but claiming that
means my vote counts more is like saying Manu's vote counts more, because
he's clearly done the work to line a bunch of Members up behind VC.
> However, has not Manu created the consensus necessary to stand up a WG?
> Your organisations may not choose to implement a Recommendation coming from
> that WG, but should you stand in the way of other Members choosing to
> pursue it?
>
1) Again, my objections HAVE been essentially "pursue away - but you can do
that outside a WG, because I don't see the evidence that this has coalesced
enough to be ready to lock in a date and deliverable for a spec."
2) I'm happy to see the expanded references Manu sent; I'm afraid I don't
have the time to review them in the next week. (I'm core content planner
for Chrome Dev Summit, which is next week, and I don't have a spare couple
of hours.) I don't honestly know, off the cuff, not having given those
references beyond a cursory glance, but I am at least happy to see
incubation being taken seriously.
-C