Re: not closed by process rules [was: So, what's left?]

On Tue, 25 Jan 2000, Dan Connolly wrote:
[rearranged]

> There's no W3C-wide rule that working groups must be closed.
> W3C process *allows* working groups to be closed, but doesn't
> require them to be.

Thanks for the clarification. 

> short deadline? Eventually, we issue a last call with a finite
> deadline, but that's not before the spec has been out for review
> for quite some time. When did we release a draft with a short
> deadline?

The new XHTML stuff comes out first week of January, and we have up to
Feb 1 to submit comments.  That *includes* grokking the stuff before
venturing to comment.  Never mind being away on vacation or business
trips or whatever.  Either 'Feb 1 2000' means something - thanks but
no thanks after that date - or it doesn't.  Which is it?

> Each activity has its own structure. The proceedings of many
> of the WAI WGs are publicly readable (and writeable, I think) for
> example.
> 	http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/
> 
> The HTML WG has been member-confidential for a long time, but
> nothing says it has to stay that way; charters generally last 18
> months or so, and then they get renewed/updated/whatever. The HTML
> WG could be rechartered to have public proceedings at any time, if
> we thought we could get the engineers from member companies to
> participate under those conditions.

> > We're lucky to have someone like you, offering information, but
> > *by process rules* this is an exception.
> 
> I don't see how it's an exception. Which part of the process are
> you referring to?

My comments were based on my experience with the w3c-sgml-wg, which
became the xml-sig in Summer 97.  Given that the w3c-sgml-wg archive
had been public, I - and some others I discussed this with, I might
add - saw no reason to have that list in camera.  We were given to
understand that 'W3C Process Rules' required this, or somesuch [1].  
I can't think of any vendor or member who *didn't* particpate in the
open-to-public-review w3c-sgml-wg list and then with a huge sigh of
relief held forth in the back-room-boys-only xml-sig list.

[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-sgml-wg/1997Jun/0462.html

Are you now syaing that all that was really unnecessary?  

> I suppose it could be better, but it's quite a challenge to
> actually get things to operate differently.

I think the way Jon Bosak ran w3c-sgml-wg was a model of excellence.


Arjun

Received on Tuesday, 25 January 2000 23:38:30 UTC