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

Arjun Ray wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 25 Jan 2000, Dan Connolly wrote:
> > Arjun Ray wrote:
> >
> > Er... which stuff is that? I see some XHTML publications the first
> > week of January, but nothing new; this stuff has been available
> > for months; e.g.
> 
> For someone content with stroboscopic views, yes.  My basic point was
> this:
> 
> > > That *includes* grokking the stuff before venturing to comment.
> 
> A spec, however many versions, is mainly the end result of a
> discussion process.  In my experience, understanding is helped far
> more by checking the 'audit trail' so to speak, because it obviates
> either need or cause to go over old ground.
>
> If you think that W3C specs are models of standa-alone clarity, I have
> some bad news for you:)

touche'

Well... the way things are set up, you're expected to send comments
when you don't understand, and the WG is expected to understand
from the feedback if their spec isn't clear enough.

I agree that going over old ground sucks. I think I'm on record as
saying
	"I'd rather have my teeth drilled than re-write something
	I've written before."

(I am now, if I wasn't before!)

I don't really  have a good answer, except that perhaps I'll take
this input to the negotiations about the next HTML WG charter
and argue that we're back to a climate where
doing the discussions in the public in the first
place is more efficient. And perhaps other W3C members here will
do likewise.

> > It's a schedule that was arrived at after *significant* negotiation.
> > But if you can make a case that the public hasn't had sufficient
> > time to review it (in the face of evidence such as the above) then
> > those negotiations can be re-opened.
> 
> I'm not going to make a case, because negotiating deadlines isn't
> essential to my point, which is access to a discussion archive.  And
> on that subject, how about moving the w3c-xml-sig list to the Public
> Area?  It's 1-1/2 years dead.

Folks who sent to w3c-xml-sig were told that the forum was confidential
to the W3C membership. Not confidential for a while, but just
plain confidential. So we don't have license to release their
contributions.
In order to release them, I'd have to secure explicit agreement from
everyone who participated.

Some days I think that would be worth the trouble, but then I get
busy with something else and ...


> > > [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; I'm saying it was by choice, not by logical consequence
> > of W3C Process.
> 
> Well, was the idea bruited for the HTML-WG?

Sorry, I don't understand. "bruited"?


> > The situation was: other working groups that the XML WG was going to
> > start collaborating with were W3C member-confidential. So there
> > was a choice between smooth(-er) collaboration between the XML WG
> > and those other WGs on the one hand, and easy access to the public
> > to the XML WG proceedings on the other. The choice we (Jon, I, et. al.)
> > made was to facilitate collaboration with other W3C working groups
> > at the expense of public access.
> 
> What!??
> 
> For XML!!??
> 
> You have just said that it was necessary to internalize the
> development of XML - a *fundamental* technology - for political
> expedience.

No...

First, I didn't say it was necessary. I said we chose it.

Second, you equate efficiency of people working together with political
expedience? I don't.

I'm talking about collaboration between two groups where
every time you cross the boundary you have to think "er... which
parts of this are confidential and which aren't?" and you can't
share pointers to documents, and so on. It's just
access-control-administrivia-hell.


>  I can understand it when vendor interests - such as the
> value-added features they might want to protect from premature
> exposure - are involved for specific things.  But not for XML.
> 
> Please tell me I've read this wrong.

I'm not sure... I don't think I understand what you wrote.

> > > I think the way Jon Bosak ran w3c-sgml-wg was a model of excellence.
> >
> > The trick was integrating the work of w3c-sgml-wg with the work of
> > other groups in and around W3C. That sort of thing is rarely, if ever,
> > smooth.
> 
> And, so, as Walter says, the public gets it the neck instead;-)

Well.. the part of the public that wanted to watch the discussion
up close suffered, but the part of the public that just wanted the
finished
product got it sooner (in my estimation). Which is the greater good?
I don't think there's any certain answer.

-- 
Dan Connolly
http://www.w3.org/People/Connolly/

Received on Wednesday, 26 January 2000 02:41:10 UTC