WebFonts Working Group approved, started.

Hello www-font,

Creation of a working group at W3C can be a lengthy process. A notice  of intention to work in a given area is circulated to W3C Members, usually with a proposed charter. Changes are incorporated in response to feedback. Then, once there seems to be broad agreement, a revised charter is presented for Advisory Committee review. It may be accepted or modified or rejected outright at that stage. (There can be multiple cycles of this, if the proposed work area is contentious).

All that has now happened; the AC review of the WebFonts WG charter started in February and ended last Friday. Review comments (most W3C Member only, though some were copied to public fora) were light and have been integrated into the charter. Creation of the WebFonts WG was approved by W3C Management yesterday afternoon. I then put in place the necessary infrastructure (patent policy database entry, public page, issue and action tracker, wiki, joining form) needed to make the announcement. 

The announcement and call for participation was sent out to W3C Members last night. A W3C front page news item is in preparation. Now, W3C AC representatives are filling in the form to join the group (this involves making a Royalty Free commitment, so this legal undertaking can take a little time.)

The WebFonts WG is now open for business! 

Here is the approved charter
http://www.w3.org/2009/08/WebFonts/charter.html
Vladimir Levantovsky is the WG chair; I am the W3C staff contact.

a skeleton page for the new group (not much there yet but a link to join - see below)
http://www.w3.org/Fonts/WG/

some introductory material
http://www.w3.org/Fonts/

a mailing list for working group participants, with a public archive
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webfonts-wg/

an issues and actions tracker, currently empty
http://www.w3.org/Fonts/WG/track/

a public list of which organizations have made the patent policy commitment for this group and any patents that they have disclosed as essential (currently no patents listed)
http://www.w3.org/2004/01/pp-impl/44556/status

and a public list of working group participants who have agreed to the patent policy and joined the group
http://www.w3.org/2000/09/dbwg/details?group=44556&public=1

oh and a wiki, for the WG to use as a scratchboard (currently empty)
http://www.w3.org/Fonts/WG/wiki/Main_Page

You will notice that all this is public; the WebFonts WG is chartered to work in public.

This list will continue to be used for general technical discussion of fonts on the web, which can include specific comments on specifications or more general and wider ranging comments about licensing, typography, and so forth. Anyone can join www-font. Anyone can read the archive, whether they subscribe to the list or not.

The WG list, with a public archive, will be used for WG-specific things like agendas, minutes, and so on. WG members (nominated by their AC Representative, if they are employees of a W3C Member, or Invited Experts), who have all made the participation and patent policy commitments, are subscribed to the WG list. Anyone can read the WG archive, whether they subscribe to the list or not.

If you are reading this and are interested, motivated, an employee of a W3C Member, talk to your Advisory Committee representative and get them to nominate you. Yes, there can be multiple representatives from one Member, especially if they have different, and relevant, areas of expertise. The AC Rep fills in this form (W3C Member access required)
http://www.w3.org/2004/01/pp-impl/44556/join

If you are reading this and are interested, motivated, and work for yourself, or a small company, or an open source project related to Fonts, or a large company that is quite unrelated to the Web, then you may be considered as an Invited Expert. The first step is to contact myself and Vladimir (copied) to express interest.

If you are reading this and are interested, motivated, and work a large company that is Web-related, or a University - ie an organization which should be a W3C Member but isn't- then ideally that organization would join W3C to help with this work.  If they don't want to join and an individual wants to help, it gets complicated. W3C depends on Member fees to run. So a case-by-case decision has to be made on whether to persuade that organization to join (which they may or may not be willing to do), or to allow an individual to participate (with some risk of submarine patents and loss of member revenue, but gain to the WG of their time and expertise). Contact Vladimir and myself and we will explore the options.

More info about joining:

Invited Expert and Collaborator agreement
http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/2007/06-invited-expert

Instructions for Invited Experts
http://www.w3.org/2004/08/invexp

Process Document
http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Process-20010719/groups.html#JoinGroups


-- 
 Chris Lilley                    mailto:chris@w3.org
 Technical Director, Interaction Domain
 W3C Graphics Activity Lead
 Co-Chair, W3C Hypertext CG

Received on Thursday, 18 March 2010 16:25:03 UTC