- From: David Marston/Cambridge/IBM <david_marston@us.ibm.com>
- Date: Tue, 8 Oct 2002 15:33:19 -0400
- To: www-qa-wg@w3.org
I found Ian's proposal of last year: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/chairs/2001OctDec/0037.html which I like, especially the part that says: "The only 'normative' corrections to a Recommendation are those in the Approved state." This implies that errata on their way to being approved are visible. There is a newer proposal from Ian and C.M. Sperberg-McQueen at http://www.w3.org/2002/05/31-errata Feedback requested at http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/chairs/2002JulSep/0125.html It has a good definition of "substantive changes" tied directly to the conformance implications. It proposes a heavyweight process for such changes, which is good in the sense of providing a public review period, but risky if it discourages WGs from dealing with errata in a timely fashion. The proposal includes an erratum mailing list for each Rec, to which an interested person could subscribe. There is a large gap in the proposal, though: it is only used for notices of proposed and maybe approved errata, but it should also be used to announce that an issue is on the "errata track" because the process is so heavy. For example, when I send in my issue about empty lists and xsl:number to the XSL WG, I think that xslt-errata subscribers should know right away, so that they can send in test cases that expand the analysis of the issue. If others don't learn of it until the WG has boiled an erratum out of my issue, their response will come at a late stage, and there is a much higher likelihood of the erratum having to go back for revision. (BTW, the issues I send arose in response to an approved erratum that was not as complete and final a disposition as the WG evidently thought it was.) The proposal suggests formal publication no more often than every three months, so earlier public notice allows implementers to bring their products in line with proposed errata that seem likely to be approved. Test case writers can get tests ready, particularly the errata annotations, so that they can be added to the suite on the day approval is announced. Errata would "become normative only when republished on the TR page." This is a possible problem if the time lag gets too long. Other than that, I'm favorable. Of course, we also need to have timely response for Recs that are actively used but whose WGs are disbanded. Errata should be numbered, so that test case exclusion can be driven by a consistent ID scheme. It helps for citations, too. .................David Marston
Received on Tuesday, 8 October 2002 15:39:00 UTC