Re: CfC: Call for resolution to publish WoT Profiles as a Group Note

On Mon, 4 Aug 2025 at 10:48, Kazuyuki Ashimura <ashimura@w3.org> wrote:

> the latest W3C Process (specifcally its section 6.3.13.1 [a]) says
> that we should publish a draft, which we have given up to bring to
> REC, as an "Discontinued Draft" instead of a "Note". So I'll talk with
> Philippe about that today.


Thank you for highlighting this, Kaz. Have you received any feedback on
this from Philippe?

In my view "Discontinued Draft" would not accurately represent the current
status of this document. It has undergone significant changes and
improvements <https://w3c.github.io/wot-profile/#changes-from-wd> since the
last Working Draft (i.e. it has not had "no substantive change compared to
the previous publication" as per the description in the W3C Process
Document), and I don't think it would be accurate to say that the Working
Group decided to "abandon work on the report". In fact we have spent the
last three months working intensively to get the document ready for
publication. In terms of implementation experience I would suggest that it
is at least as mature as the WoT Scripting API
<https://www.w3.org/TR/wot-scripting-api/>, which is published as a Group
Note.

If the W3C are not happy for us to move this document from the
Recommendation track to the Note track then I think we will need to
re-visit the resolutions made by the profiles task force
<https://www.w3.org/2025/05/07-wot-profile-minutes.html#b8e8> and wider working
group <https://www.w3.org/2025/05/21-wot-minutes.html#335a> to publish WoT
Profiles as a Group Note. The choice presented to the group was between a
Candidate Recommendation and a Group Note, not between a Candidate
Recommendation and a Discontinued Draft, and it's possible the group may
have made a different decision had this been known at the time.

If it is not possible to move the document from the Recommendation track to
the Note track for procedural reasons then my personal preference would
actually be to continue along the Recommendation track and try to work
towards publishing it as a Candidate Recommendation instead. I think the
document is actually now in quite a good state, and it's possible that the
clarifying assertions recently added to the Profiling Mechanism section may
help alleviate concerns that some members have had in the past, and that
actually this is the best version of Profiles we can define within the
constraints of WoT 1.x. With further work on implementation and testing it
may be feasible for Profiles 1.0 to become a W3C Recommendation, though
that would inevitably delay the start of work on Profiles 2.0.

I am still happy to publish WoT Profiles 1.0 as a Group Note ¹ (as per the
current group consensus) if the W3C will allow it, but if this is not
allowed then I would suggest that we will need to re-visit the Working
Group's original decision.

Hopefully you will have more information in time for us to discuss this in
the Main and/or Profiles call tomorrow.

Kind regards

Ben

1. Something to bear in mind is that if for Profiles 2.0 we take a registry
approach like the WoT Bindings Registry as has been discussed, it's
possible that the actual profile specifications themselves may end up being
Group Notes, and only the specification of the profiling *mechanism* forms
part of a W3C Recommendation. So Profiles as Group Notes may actually be a
long term plan as well.