Re: Request for Decision: Design Principles

+www-archive +karl +dan +chris +maciej

At 09:59 AM 4/19/2007, (in message 
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2007Apr/1210.html) 
Murray Maloney wrote:

>To the chairs and fellow members:
>
>I think that it is premature to make such a decision.
>
>I would feel more comfortable with a set of design principles
>that had been arrived at after a chair-moderated discussion.
>
>I am not content with the content of the existing Proposed
>Design Principles or the process that was followed to
>develop them. I am convinced that a reasonable set of
>Principles or Guidelines can be developed under the guiding
>hand of the chairs.

This made me wonder something:

Maciej has written 
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2007Apr/0911.html 
concerning the proposed principles that

 >You can think of them as self-imposed amendments to the charter, so
 >that we don't have to pick through the often vague language of the
 >charter for justification. Since they are self-imposed, they are also
 >less difficult to add or remove in response to feedback. All it takes
 >is a decision of the group, not the full re-chartering process which
 >is slow and disruptive.

Has a W3C group ever modified its own charter in this way? If so was 
it done by majority rule?

If there is a minority which opposes such a modification of a 
charter, then it would seem that consensus has not been achieved and 
that an official rechartering might be required. Maybe not. I suspect 
Karl may know of precedents.

Or perhaps in some meta WG that oversees the specifications of 
charters, there may be language that covers exactly this situation 
and that a majority may, as it wishes, change things in this way. In 
the US, I think one needs a 2/3 majority to change the constitution, 
plus some sort of state-by-state referendum.

regards,
Davidhttp://srufaculty.sru.edu/david.dailey/

Received on Friday, 20 April 2007 18:24:13 UTC