Re: QT4CG “Charter and process” proposal

Just a few questions in the attached Word document.

Thanks,
Dimitre

On Mon, Sep 5, 2022 at 7:56 AM Norm Tovey-Walsh <norm@saxonica.com> wrote:

> Hi folks,
>
> In the agenda I just published, I proposed that we might want to
> consider adopting a more up-to-date charter and process. I don’t know
> what the official route would be for changing the W3C community group
> page’s charter, and I don’t think there is a process document for
> community groups.
>
> But, informally if not formally, I think we would all benefit from
> having some ground rules in place. Mike and I chatted about it a little
> bit, and here’s something to consider as a starting point.
>
> QT4 CG Charter and process
>
> The group aims to agree to extensions to the XSLT 3.0 Recommendation
> published on 8 June 2017 and the XQuery and XPath 3.1 Recommendations
> published on 21 March 2017, along with supporting changes to the other
> specifications (XPath, Functions and Operators, Serialization) on
> which these depend.
>
> A preliminary proposal describing requirements for such extensions can
> be found in Michael Kay's Proposal for XSLT 4.0 published in the
> Proceedings of XML Prague 2020,
>
> https://archive.xmlprague.cz/2020/files/xmlprague-2020-proceedings.pdf#page=121
>
> This has been supplemented by a wide variety of proposed enhancements
> which are registered as issues against the GitHub repository,
> https://github.com/qt4cg/qtspecs/issues
>
> It is intended that the group will operate through the use of email
> and forums together with weekly conference calls. Formal progress will
> be made through minuted decisions made at the weekly conference calls.
>
> The general modus operandi of the group will be as follows:
>
> + Technical debates should be held primarily offline; issues will only
>   be placed on the agenda for a group call if (a) there is consensus
>   behind a concrete proposal for the group to ratify, or (b) there is
>   a clear choice to be made between competing proposals, or between
>   making a well defined change or leaving the specification unchanged.
>
> + The default decision is to preserve the status quo (the existing
>   specifications) unless there is a clear consensus to do otherwise.
>
> + Specifications without implementations have no value. Therefore,
>   while everyone gets a voice in putting forward ideas, the group will
>   not accept proposals if implementors raise strong objections.
>
> + There is a strong presumption in favour of retaining backwards
>   compatibility. Incompatible changes will only be made for "edge
>   cases", and only if there is clear evidence that the existing
>   specifications cause serious problems for users or implementors.
>
> + There is a strong presumption against changes to the data model, on
>   the theory that changes to the data model tend to have many knock-on
>   effects that can take years to work through.
>
> + Proposals for new features, at the time they are put forward for a
>   formal decision, must be sufficiently complete in their technical
>   detail that adding the new features to the specification is an
>   editorial process that does not require making technical choices.
>
> + The editor will, as soon as practicable after each meeting, update the
>   draft specifications on GitHub and republish them, with change
>   markings. Members are expected to check that the specifications have
>   been updated correctly and to report any errors found as GitHub
>   issues.
>
>                                         Be seeing you,
>                                           norm
>
> --
> Norman Tovey-Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com>
> https://nwalsh.com/
>
> > The reason lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place is that the
> > same place isn't there the second time.--Willie Tyler
>


-- 
Cheers,
Dimitre Novatchev
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