Re: Toward standardization of WebVR?

Hi Dominique...I think the timing is probably just about right for some level of standardization. Having been a participant in many standards efforts of the years (SGML, VRML, X3D) my one general area of concern is to not have the standards effort go down too academic (kitchen sink) kind of route, where features get added because they are conceptually interesting or elegant but no one is really asking for them. I think the W3C has generally managed to avoid that trap...so it would be great to go forth and standardize especially now BEFORE content specialized or specific to one piece of hardware or software platform becomes dominant.

Sandy


Sandy Ressler
High Performance Computing and Visualization Group
National Institute of Standards and Technology
100 Bureau Drive, STOP 8911
Gaithersburg MD, 20899
(301) 975-3549 Fax: (301) 975-3218
sressler@nist.gov      @sressler


________________________________
From: Dominique Hazael-Massieux <dom@w3.org>
Sent: Monday, March 13, 2017 8:41 AM
To: public-webvr@w3.org
Cc: Yingying Chen
Subject: Toward standardization of WebVR?

Dear WebVR Community Group,

One of the conclusions of the Web & VR workshop we held in October 2016
was that WebVR was a key component needed to make the Web a viable
platform for VR, and that work on standardizing it should be part of
W3C's roadmap.
  https://www.w3.org/2016/06/vr-workshop/report.html

For those not necessarily familiar with the W3C process, the benefits of
the formal W3C standardization process (compared to the spec development
in a Community Group) includes:
* Royalty-free licensing commitment with the protections from the W3C
Patent Policy

* Strengthening of the specifications via so-called "horizontal reviews"
from other W3C groups in the fields of accessibility,
internationalization, security, privacy

* More cross-pollination with other spec-developing Working Groups, esp.
through the participation to the annual W3C Technical Plenary week

* Assistance from the W3C staff with designated staff contact(s) who can
help with process, public communication (press release, conferences,
etc) and coordination with other groups and external liaisons


I've been watching the great progress the community group is achieving
on the WebVR API, and have started inquiries about the timing to start
the formal standardization work on that API.

Some of the early feedback I got was that the work should continue its
incubation for a bit more time, and that during that time, it would be
helpful for W3C to identify and ideally smooth any obstacle that the
consensus-based standardization process might bring.

I am now thus seeking input from the Community Group at large on two
main questions:
* what would be the criteria that you would see as relevant to determine
that WebVR is mature enough to start its path on the standardization
process? From my reading of our own internal best practices on the topic
[1], WebVR ticks pretty much all of the boxes, but there may be
constraints specific to this spec or community that would be worth
knowing about.
1. https://www.w3.org/Guide/standards-track/

* what risks or obstacles can you think of that the standardization
process might bring? I can imagine for instance that getting an early
understanding of the impact of some of the horizontal reviews (e.g.
accessibility) would help, but again, would prefer to get as clear a
picture as possible to pave the way forward.  Since horizontal reviews
address issues that help implementation and  deployment, not just
standardization, how can we help those reviews to fit, for example with
early use of self-review checklists.


I'm interested in input from as many interested parties as possible,
either on this list or by private email directly to me and my colleague
Yingying Chen  <yingying@w3.org>.

I'm also happy to given more context and clarifications as needed. Thanks,

Dominique Hazael-Massieux
organizer of the W3C workshop on Web & VR