Re: example: the HTML WG process is not working

Jeff,

Le 28 mars 2012 à 09:10, Jeff Jaffe a écrit :
> What are the alternatives?  The editor is entitled to his opinion if he disagrees.  And the WG is entitled to their opinion if they disagree with the editor.

CONTEXT: I'm not taking side. I'm just interested by my impression of 
the social dynamic at play.


I do not think it is really about the editor, Ian Hickson here. 

Let's rewind a bit the historical tape. :)

The old:HTMLWG was left by the browser vendors because the feedback 
on fixing HTML4 was not listened (A bigger part of the W3C Membership
had decided to move on XHTML work). So the browser vendors which were
interested in fixing the issues they had in their environment created 
what became the WHATWG. Unfortunate but common in social communities.
At a point the old:HTMLWG was doing practical work on XHTML2 and XForms
but in a way which was a kind of fork, in a parallel universe with 
people with different priorities.

Fast-forward to now.

It is happening again. The new:HTMLWG is being more and more abandoned 
if not totally abandoned by the participation of browser vendors because 
of different visions on what should be HTML. The difference is that 
people are still in the WG, but they mostly do not really participate.
Or more exactly the participation is on arguing more than looking for 
common solutions. People trying to assess they are right, more than "how 
do we improve this, this is a cool idea, let's do better."  People from 
browser vendors feel they will have more fruitful contributions outside 
of the new:HTMLWG. So we end up with a specification which  is not bad 
but is indeed drifting away from what one powerful part of the community 
wants.

We can also note that /new:HTMLWG/ is mainly discussing about accessibility
issues, DRM, etc. Topics which are already heavy per se.


On the other hand, to note, that a lot of cool stuff is happening in WebApps
WG and DOM WG. People have disagreement sometimes but there is a very active 
participation. 


-- 
Karl Dubost - http://dev.opera.com/
Developer Relations, Opera Software

Received on Wednesday, 28 March 2012 13:30:02 UTC