Re: CfC: to add Speech API to Charter; deadline January 19

Art,

Thanks for these comments.  As one of the chairs of the original XG, I'd like to mention that, indeed, there have been and continue to be disagreements on the scope of what should be in a first recommendation-track document.  Additionally, there have been disagreements on where this work should continue, with some members suggesting WebApps as the appropriate place for some of the work and others suggesting that a new WG would be appropriate for the work done in W3C.

Personally I don't care where the work happens as long as it does indeed represent industry consensus as much as possible.  Because of the disagreements on scope, I think we are unlikely to see an immediate agreement to advance the specific subset proposal presented by Glen Shires and others at Google.  I also would like to hear from proponents of this proposal how they believe this work can productively proceed within the WebApps Working Group.

You can consider this a long-winded '+1' to your email, Art.

Dan Burnett
Former Co-Chair, HTML Speech XG

On Jan 19, 2012, at 9:45 AM, Arthur Barstow wrote:

> Hi All - a couple of my comments on this proposal ...
> 
> First, in case folks are not familiar with the W3C's process to formally adding a new deliverable to a WG's charter, here are the general steps: 1) a proposal for new work is made; 2) determine if there is WG consensus on the proposed scope increase; 3) W3C staff proposes new scope/deliverable to the Advisory Committee (this is a "formal" charter review with Member-only confidentiality) ; 4) Director makes a decision. I mention this because even if there is consensus within the WG to add a deliverable, comments submitted during step 3 can affect the Director's decision.
> 
> If WebApps takes on this work, my expectation is that the work will proceed in an asynchronous manner as is consistent with all of WebApps' other current work (see [WorkMode]). If the proponents would like a couple of calls to help bootstrap the work, I would be willing to help with that but I cannot commit to regular ongoing calls.
> 
> Since the members of the XG have different views on the specific features WebApps should take, it raises concerns from me about this effort being a bit unbounded. Although there can be some potential IP commitment benefits if WebApps takes this work, it seems like this could effectively become a WG within a WG and I think that is antagonistic to the spirit of W3C and doing so could provide an IP barrier for Members that only want to commit to the Speech scope and not all of WebApps' other scope (this is already a problem for some Members). As such, I think the proponents of this proposal should provide clear arguments why a new WG (effectively a continuation of the XG with a new name) is not a better choice.
> 
> -AB
> 
> On 1/12/12 7:31 AM, ext Arthur Barstow wrote:
>> Glen Shires and some others at Google proposed [1] that WebApps add Speech API to WebApps' charter and they put forward the Speech Javascript API Specification [2] as as a starting point. Members of Mozilla and Nuance have voiced various levels of support for this proposal. As such, this is a Call for Consensus to add Speech API to WebApps' charter.
>> 
>> Positive response to this CfC is preferred and encouraged and silence will be considered as agreeing with the proposal. The deadline for comments is January 19 and all comments should be sent to public-webapps at w3.org.
>> 
>> -AB
>> 
>> [1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webapps/2011OctDec/1696.html
>> [2] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webapps/2011OctDec/att-1696/speechapi.html
>> 
>

Received on Thursday, 19 January 2012 21:10:13 UTC