Re: Rebalancing How the Web is Built

On 09/11/2016 12:28 PM, Joseph Potvin wrote:
> 1. Don't large W3C member firms often face the same frustrations with
> other large competitor firms?

Not often and if it does happen, it doesn't happen very publicly.
Typically less is asked of large organizations trying to do something at
W3C than small organizations. This may be because large organizations
vet a lot of this behind the scenes and come into the process more
prepared. Or it may be because larger organizations don't need to prove
that they can make the solution work in the market as much as a group of
smaller organizations because they can usually fall back to the "we have
millions of customers, of course we can make the standard work in the
market" argument.

> Is this really a size issue ultimately, or a general governance 
> issue?

It's a bit of both. It's a messy problem.

> 2. Would your proposed approach have W3C funding implications, where
>  some major donors find it less useful for constraining competition?

Perhaps, but I think the larger organizations are more concerned about
the high cost of failure at W3C (staffing costs) rather than the ability
to constrain competition. I have had discussions with many of the
Advisory Committee reps from the large organizations and their focus has
always seemed to be on using W3C resources wisely.

> And one tweak for consideration:
> 
> RE: "Produce two implementations and a test suite."
> 
> I'd suggest three, and on different platforms.

The W3C requirements are two so I didn't want to raise the bar more than
necessary. Also note that these implementations can be /very expensive/
to implement and raising that particular bar would make it more
difficult for small organizations to innovate.

-- manu

-- 
Manu Sporny (skype: msporny, twitter: manusporny, G+: +Manu Sporny)
Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
blog: Advancing the Web Payments HTTP API and Core Messages
http://manu.sporny.org/2016/yes-to-http-api/

Received on Monday, 12 September 2016 15:30:04 UTC