RE: Methods of working: WebRTC WG and the PeerConnection spec

Hi Mike,

thanks for taking the time to provide insight and clarifications! 

We need to discuss further in the WG and between chairs, but spontaneously I have the personal feeling that bugzilla could be very useful (as already said).

I'm glad to to see that you agree to that it can not replace email discussions - rather potentially enhance them as there can be a link between bugzilla and the mail list. In my role as a WG chair, of course my preference would be to have the WebRTC related discussion happening on the WG mail list. In my view it could also give more focus compared to being one of several topics on a mail list with a broader scope.

Stefan

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael[tm] Smith [mailto:mike@w3.org] 
Sent: den 13 maj 2011 13:25
To: Stefan Håkansson LK
Cc: Ian Hickson; Harald Alvestrand; Francois Daoust; www-archive@w3.org
Subject: Re: Methods of working: WebRTC WG and the PeerConnection spec

Hi Stefan,

About this question:

> A question: filing bugs feels like something you do when the problem 
> (and possibly the solution) is quite clear. But would not a bug filing 
> in many cases be preceeded by a discussion, especially for stuff like 
> WebRTC where new concepts (like peer-to-peer communication) and 
> solutions are introduced? I think there will be a need for a lot of 
> discussions (presumably via mail) as we move forward.

Right -- using bugzilla doesn't have to be (and shouldn't be) a substitute for list discussions. It can just be another choice, for those who opt to use it, for commenting on the spec. I guess one of the things that make it a particularly appealing and useful option to certain implementors (especially browser implementors) is that it's quite similar to the bug systems they use in their "day jobs" for receiving and tracking bugs about the products they work on.

Also, it's easy to configure things such that each time a new bug is raised, a notification and description for it can automatically get posted to the working-group discussion list. And if it's something that seems to merit discussion on the list, anybody's free to reply to the notification on the list and say, We really should discuss this here. But if it's instead something that doesn't seem to merit the attention of the whole group, but instead maybe just the editor (e.g., about a typo or editorial correction/suggestion of some other kind), then people who care to follow it can just add themselves to the Cc list for the bug, while others who don't have an interest in it don't need to pay any more attention to it.

Anyway, it goes without saying that each group has its own culture, some of which comes collectively from the participants in the group, and some of which is set by the chairs based on how they want to run things. So using bugzilla is certainly not a requirement, and I'm not saying that making it available in this particular group is absolutely the right thing. It's up the to chairs to decide how they'd best like to manage communication.

But I do want to note that using bugzilla seems to have worked out pretty well for collecting some useful feedback on the HTML5 spec, as well as some related specs in the WebApps working group and elsewhere. And it has not precluded very active discussion from continuing to take place on the corresponding discussion lists for specs (the HTML WG public-html mailing list, the WHATWG list, the WebApps WG public-webapps list, and so on).

  --Mike

Stefan H・・kansson LK <stefan.lk.hakansson@ericsson.com>, 2011-05-13 11:23 +0200:

> Of course we will need to discuss between Harald, Francois and myself 
> (as well as getting the new WG to agree), but spontaneously this feels 
> like a very good way forward.
> 
> A question: filing bugs feels like something you do when the problem 
> (and possibly the solution) is quite clear. But would not a bug filing 
> in many cases be preceeded by a discussion, especially for stuff like 
> WebRTC where new concepts (like peer-to-peer communication) and 
> solutions are introduced? I think there will be a need for a lot of 
> discussions (presumably via mail) as we move forward.
> 
> Stefan
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ian Hickson [mailto:ian@hixie.ch]
> Sent: den 12 maj 2011 21:16
> To: Michael[tm] Smith
> Cc: Harald Alvestrand; Stefan H・・kansson LK; Francois Daoust; 
> www-archive@w3.org
> Subject: Re: Methods of working: WebRTC WG and the PeerConnection spec
> 
> On Fri, 13 May 2011, Michael[tm] Smith wrote:
> > Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch>, 2011-05-12 18:46 +0000:
> > 
> > > The HTML working group at the W3C has been using W3C's Bugzilla 
> > > instance to handle HTML spec feedback, which has also worked well; 
> > > I'd be happy to handle PeerConnection feedback through that 
> > > mechanism as well. I imagine Mike would be happy to set up a 
> > > component for us if we want to do that. There's already a number 
> > > of bugs on the topic filed there.
> > 
> > Yeah, it's easy to set up new components in bugzilla, and our 
> > experiences with using it in the HTML WG have shown that a lot of 
> > implementors and QA engineers from browser-dev teams and such like 
> > having a bug system available as a choice for providing comments and 
> > questions, and will make good use of it if it's provided.
> 
> Cool, thanks Mike.
> 
> One other advantage with using Bugzilla, come to think of it, is that the bug filing mechanism in the WHATWG specs are already set up to automatically file bugs in the right components in the W3C Bugzilla.
> 

--
Michael[tm] Smith
http://people.w3.org/mike

Received on Friday, 13 May 2011 12:01:42 UTC