RE: charter update with two year cycle

From: David MacDonald [mailto:david100@sympatico.ca]
Sent: Monday, October 10, 2016 3:34 PM

That's right we don't. If we had shipped WCAG 2 in 2006 when we were in the final cycle, without getting it right we would have been a colossal failure. Those two years until 2008 enabled us to address 1200 public comments and emerge with no formal objections and one of the most successful standards in history.
[Jason] And WCAG 2.1 departs from past work in two ways: by extending an existing specification, and by insisting on a time-based release process.
Let’s try this experiment once before deciding whether to repeat it. I continue to hold the view that it would be irresponsible
at this point to signal an intention to maintain a regular, time-based release cycle. Rather, I think it’s contingent on what happens during 2.1, and on whether we decide to proceed directly to Silver (i.e., 3.0 or whatever it’s ultimately called) at the end of that work, or whether we progress toward a subsequent 2.x release – and if so, with what schedule.
I’m essentially insisting that we not make any decisions now that we or important beneficiaries of the Guidelines would be entitled to regard as excluding any of those options post 2.1. It’s also likely that some, if not most requirements emerging from the task forces which aren’t addressed in 2.1 will be difficult to transform into high-quality, testable success criteria – I think the easy issues will mostly, if not entirely, be resolved for 2.1, leaving us with the harder problems that take more time and effort to codify in WCAG.
It’s also possible that by the time 2.1 is released, technology will have evolved to the point at which we recognize that the next step has to be a revision rather than an extension, and this would motivate a move to Silver rather than a further 2.x release. Alternatively, the Working Group may not have the resources to develop Silver and another 2.x release in parallel, while completing Silver within a reasonable time – if that’s the case, it would again be necessary to forego later 2.x versions.
I’m not about to try to predict what scenario will hold in 2018, of which the above merely exemplify some of the possibilities. Withholding commitments now gives us the necessary flexibility to adapt to whatever happens without setting up, then failing to meet, expectations – which is why I’m concerned about what signals we send out now in documents written prior to actually completing a 2.1 Recommendation.


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