Re: IETF sponsorship

Jim Whitehead wrote:
> 
> At 11:01 AM 1/6/97, Ben Laurie wrote:
> >Jim Whitehead wrote:
> >> Some issues that arose:
> >> - I conveyed the group's desire to receive sponsorship from both the W3C
> >> and the IETF.  Keith and Harald wanted to know exactly what this meant --
> >> which procedures would be followed, who would control documents, etc.  I
> >> stated that the IETF procedures and guidelines would be the ones followed.
> >> The benefit from W3C sponsorship would be to receive greater review and
> >> exposure in the Web community. Documents would be initially prepared
> >> according to IETF guidelines, then mirrored to the W3C. There was some
> >> concern that being a W3C working group would mean that working group
> >> documents could be kept hidden, which is contrary to the spirit and rules
> >> of the IETF.  I reaffirmed our position that the WEBDAV working group is
> >> open, producing open intermediate and final documents, and that this would
> >> not change under W3C sponsorship.
> >
> >I'm somewhat surprised by this idea. Firstly, is it really the group's desire
> >to be sponsored by W3C? I've seen no opinions expressed either way.
> 
> The opinion of the group, as expressed at the Palo Alto meeting, was that
> we should pursue joint sponsorship by the IETF and the W3C.  This was
> written in the minutes from the Palo Alto meeting (Day 2, 2nd paragraph).

Hmmm. I can't find these minutes, but my records are far from perfect. Was this
meeting a W3C meeting, by any chance?

I notice that the recent meeting seems only to have been asked about IETF
sponsorship.

> 
> >Are you suggesting that W3C members do
> >not take IETF standards to be definitive?
> 
> No.
> 
> If you received this impression, then it is due to a deficiency in my
> communication to the mailing list.
> 
> How did you receive this impression?

I don't know. I suppose its because W3C doesn't tell me what its up to, which
makes me sceptical about its dedication to open standards, combined with my
surprise that joint sponsorship was contemplated.

> 
> >I'd also suggest that since W3C operates in a way which is contrary to the
> >IETF's practices, that it is not necessarily in the IETF's best interests to
> >endorse W3C in this way.
> 
> I view sponsorship of the DAV activity as endorsement of the goal of
> developing a standard way to perform remote authoring and versioning of Web
> content, rather than any statement about the IETF endorsing the W3C, or
> vice-versa.

That may be the way you view it, and very possibly the way I view it, too. But
is it the way the world views it? Furthermore, I am not convinced that W3C adds
any value to the IETF process.

Cheers,

Ben.

-- 
Ben Laurie                Phone: +44 (181) 994 6435  Email: ben@algroup.co.uk
Freelance Consultant and  Fax:   +44 (181) 994 6472
Technical Director        URL: http://www.algroup.co.uk/Apache-SSL
A.L. Digital Ltd,         Apache Group member (http://www.apache.org)
London, England.          Apache-SSL author

Received on Monday, 6 January 1997 16:37:45 UTC