RE: Working group moving forward?

Jim Whitehead wrote six weeks ago:

> Joe,
> 
> Thank you for sharing your thoughts on the WebDAV WG, and its future
> direction. Thank you as well for your contributions to this working group as
> its Co-Chair. I know well that this is a time consuming and often thankless
> task.
> 
> But (and you knew a "but" was coming :-) I do disagree with you on several
> points.
> 
> 
>> My take on what I've seen in the last several months of the 
>> WebDAV working group is that if there was to be a BOF session 
>> today, I don't see any way that a working group would get 
>> approved.
> 
> Irrelevant. In 1996 there was a clear and present need for an interoperable
> web authoring standard. At that time, the WebDAV BOF had a standing room
> crowd. Of course there would be fewer people today, just as it would be hard
> to have a broadly attended FTP BOF, or Telnet BOF. We're not in that phase
> of development. We're in completion mode, not ramp up mode. It's never
> exciting to dot the final "i" and cross the final "t".
> 
>> As far as where we are now, some of the current drafts might 
>> make much better progress as individual submissions.
> 
> This is very unclear. The progress of individual submissions in the RFC
> editor's queue, once they have received IESG approval, is glacial. They
> never turn into RFCs. Working group documents fare much better in terms of
> responsiveness.
> 
>> Keep in mind that in the current process the WG chair has to shepard 
>> WG drafts through.  As much as editors may not like this, it 
>> means that you have to get at least one WG chair fired
>> up enough about your draft to take on this responsibility. 
> 
> A Chair assumes certain duties when they take on the position of Chair. 
> 
> I do not see any process RFC that states that document authors are required
> to generate enthusiasm in their Chairs.
> 
> 
>> My guess for BIND is that either Ted or Scott would want 
>> clarification on a couple of the interoperability questions 
>> that Lisa has raised, regardless of whether the answer can be 
>> inferred by a fully-informed reader.
> 
> I agree, and applaud that you, as Chair, are helping to focus the discussion
> of the working group on productive, tangible work items.
> 
>  
>> Frankly, I don't think the working group process is adding 
>> much in the way of value for the drafts we are working on, 
>> compared with other WGs I've participated in.  As such, it 
>> may be needless bureaucracy, and we ought to think about 
>> decommissioning it.
> 
> I disagree. This working group has had a good track record over the past few
> years of shipping specifications to RFC status (3648 in 12/2003, 3744 in
> 5/2004). These specifications have had multiple implementations, and are in
> shipping code that meet thousand's of people's needs on a daily basis.
> 
> The issues raised in the recent last calls have been subtle, and resolving
> them has significantly enhanced the quality and value of the final
> specifications. IMO, this is evidence of a working group doing what it's
> supposed to do: providing careful, informed review, and producing top
> quality specifications.
> 
> I think the WebDAV Working Group can very usefully serve two more purposes,
> neither of which needs to take much time.
> 
> 1) Complete BIND.
> 2) Complete Quota.
> 
> Both are very close to completion. Once these two are done, then it seems
> reasonable to disband WebDAV WG. Given how close these two documents are to
> being done, it would be a waste of all of the effort that has gone into them
> to date to stop their development as WG items now.
> 
> - Jim

I'd really appreciate if the working group chairs would follow up. We 
need to have this dicussion.


Best regards, Julian

Received on Monday, 9 May 2005 21:35:39 UTC