Re: Proposed Charter Changes

On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 10:24 PM, Michael Champion (MS OPEN TECH) <
Michael.Champion@microsoft.com> wrote:

>  Cullen Jennings <fluffy@cisco.com
> <fluffy@cisco.com?Subject=Re%3A%20Proposed%20Charter%20Changes&In-Reply-To=%3CAF740A35-9FB8-4F56-A0BB-A4864880BC8E%40cisco.com%3E&References=%3CAF740A35-9FB8-4F56-A0BB-A4864880BC8E%40cisco.com%3E>>
> wrote:
> > I put a diff at
> > https://github.com/fluffy/webrtc-charter/compare/gh-pages...fluffy:ekr
>
>   That appears to compare EKR’s proposal with the original charter that
> triggered formal objections.  Comparing Dom’s revised  charter proposal
> which addresses the objections in
> https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webrtc/2015Mar/att-0046/webrtc-charter.html to
> EKRs in https://github.com/ekr/webrtc-charter/tree/ekr_revision  I see a
> number of significant changes.  EKR’s proposal:
>
>
>
> - Adds a 3rd year to the lifetime of the WG, saying that once 1.0 is
> stable, “the group will reevaluate its deliverables and milestones, and may
> reconsider its scope.”
>
> - Adds language to the Deliverables section constraining future versions
> of the WebRTC spec to be backward compatible with 1.0
>
> - Drops the formal liaison with the ORTC Community Group
>
> - Drops language from the Decision Policy section saying that editors are
> responsible for reflecting the consensus in the WG and that those sections
> that haven’t been reviewed by the WG should visibly reflect that fact
>
>
>  These changes are not likely to build bridges between the RTC
> communities, and are problematic for a number of reasons.  In particular
> the idea that a WG “may reconsider its scope” without going through a
> formal chartering process is incompatible with the W3C process and patent
> policy.  The scope statement is a key part of the WG’s “contract” with the
> AC and what drives members IPR commitments when they join a WG.  If we have
> to go thru another rechartering exercise to put 1.1/NG deliverables in
> scope, let’s have that discussion when we have stable specs and real
> world experience to discuss, not pencil it in now and change it later.
>
>
>
> I strongly object to changing the Decision Policy section in Dom’s draft,
> which was negotiated as a way around the 2 formal objections. If there are
> substantive objections to the proposed decision policy, let’s discuss.
>
>
>
> On the ORTC liaison,the CG is a group with many of the same members as the
> WebRTC WG, and implementation experience with ORTC is exposing many
> questions about the underlying IETF specs and protocols that affect 1.0 as
> well.  No one is asking for joint decision making or a veto power, and it
> seems to be in the WebRTC WG’s best interest to maintain open and
> respectful communications with the ORTC CG.
>

This proposal from Eric was an attempt to sketch out the general idea of
what a 1.1 charter would look like, not to nail down all the details. It's
good to raise these points but I think most of them are just oversights.

>
>
> On constraining a future WebRTC standard to be backward compatible with
> 1.0, that seems reasonable in principle and Justin has sketched out an
> approach to keeping apps built for 1.0 working on in a future version. BUT
> there is a very big devil in the details: There is no stable version of 1.0
> yet, so it’s essentially signing a “blank check”, promising to support
> whatever the WG eventually fills in, irrespective of how it works in the
> real world.
>

As mentioned yesterday, I think we have a better idea now of what 1.1 is
going to be than what 1.0 was going to be when we started 1.0. IOW, I don't
think you can really argue that we are signing a blank check here.

>
>
> The way forward Dom’s charter sketches out seems less confrontational:
> The WG focuses on getting 1.0 stabilized, the ORTC CG works to see if it’s
> ideas actually work for implementers and app developers. When 1.0 gets to
> CR we all look at the evidence of what works, what else is needed, and
> figure out a 1.1/NG charter that everyone can sign up to.  I don’t
> particularly care whether the current WG charter is extended or Dom’s
> charter approved, but it’s premature to draft a 1.1 charter while 1.0 is in
> flux and ORTC is still learning from  implementation experience.  For those
> who disagree, let's start with Dom’s draft and see if there are tweaks to
> satisfy both those who want to have NG work in scope, and those who want to
> see the WG prove it can build  consensus on a 1.0 spec before claiming
> ownership of  the next generation.
>
>
>