Minutes of 2003/12/08 QAWG Telcon [DRAFT]

QA Working Group Teleconference
Monday, 08-December-2003
--
Scribe: Patrick Curran

Attendees:

(PC) Patrick Curran (Sun Microsystems)
(DD) Dimitris Dimitriadis (Ontologicon)
(KD) Karl Dubost (W3C, WG co-chair)
(DH) Dominique Hazaël-Massieux (W3C)
(LH) Lofton Henderson (CGMO - WG co-chair)
(MS) Mark Skall (NIST)
(AT) Andrew Thackrah (Open Group)
(VV) Vanitha Venkatraman (Sun Microsystems)
 
Regrets:

(SM) Sandra Martinez (NIST)
(LR) Lynne Rosenthal (NIST - IG co-chair)

Absent:

(KG) Kirill Gavrylyuk (Microsoft)


Summary of New Action Items:

AI-20031208D-1 KD to publish a summary on modules/profiles/levels: due 
12/31/03


Agenda

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-qa-wg/2003Dec/0018.html

Previous Telcon Minutes: 
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-qa-wg/2003Dec/0021.html


Minutes:

1.) roll call 11am EDT, membership

See above

2.) Any routine business

        - anything about future telecon agendas?

KD reported that response to our call for review on extending our charter
has been good. It's possible that some organizations may commit 
resources to our team.
He pointed out that some people seemed to think that a commitment of 
resources was a
prerequisite for supporting the extension; we should make it clear in 
future that this
is not the case.

[LH] proposed thanks to KD (and Daniel) for their efforts to encourage 
support.

Planned telecon agendas were discussed in the context of the next topic 
(TestGL).


3.) schedule for next TestGL draft [PC]

[PC] promised to publish the next draft of TestGL 1st week in new year. 
DD has offered to help
and MS promised to review the draft during the holiday period.

Planned telecons in the new year are:
Jan 5: guest topic  (DH)
Jan 12: inreach reports
   We decided to postpone this topic and to review the TestGL draft at 
this meeting.
Jan 19: unplanned guest topic

(The test activities questionnaire will be published Jan 1st.)


4.) Guest topic:  profiles/modules/levels in W3C specs [KD]
       
[KD] led a discussion focusing on his recent message on this subject
(http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-qa/2003Dec/0009.html) in which 
he analyzes
the usage of these terms in various W3C specs.

[KD] summarizes: the usage of these terms is inconsistent between WGs.
This makes it difficult to determine how to test. Should we recommend a
particular organization of specs? Multiple specs for one technology are
perhaps introduced as a convenience for editors, and don't necessarily
reflect a true division of the technology.

[PC] where there are multiple specs, WG should provide a list of the
individual components, and their version numbers.

[KD] a master document would suffice.

[AT] profiles could be used to implement this. They could be published
separately (not in the individual spec).

[KD] if so, how to get such a profile into Rec Track? Should we try to
drive this? Take the issue to TAG?

[DH] we should handle this during reviews of other specs - make
recommendations for better structuring

[LH] should this info be incorporated into SpecET?

[KD] our Spec Guidelines may apply more to an 'umbrella spec' rather
than to individual component specs. Difficult for us to incorporate this
info. We don't have a relevant checkpoint. As a reviewer of a spec we
can make recommendations, but it's not easy to point to something in
SpecGL that discusses this.

[LH] Style manual does make some (unexplained) references to versions,
modules, etc. Refers to pubrules for info about version/edition. There
is no guidance for how to handle this. We should drive this somehow.

[KD] there is a missing document: what's a profile, module, and how to
implement these in specifications? How to organize the technology? Best
practices.

[LH] or a primer/tutorial. Should we create a standalone note &
incorporate it by reference into SpecET.

[KD] agrees - this would be a good idea.

[LH] SVG 1.2 is struggling with issues of division of technologies -
they've invented "themes" that are like profiles.

[KD] once we have created a doc, how to publicise it? At Tech Plenary?

[LH] W3C should address this. ISO has more strict rules (what is a
"part", "revision")

[AT] Timing is a problem. If people have already gone down one path,
will be difficult to persuade them to reorg. Catch WGs in the early
stages, while they are working on new revisions.

[KD] Editing work will be required - this discourages people. Emphasize
that it may be sufficient to simple reorganize existing material.
Testimonials from people who went from monolithic specs to modular specs
would be helpful.

[KD] encourages people to comment on his email message

[LH] next steps?

[KD] takes an AI to publish a revised version of his message
incorporating the results of this discussion.


Other business)

A brief discussion of the proposed involvement in WWW2004.
(See http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-qa-wg/2003Oct/0008.html
and http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-qa-wg/2003Oct/0059.html


5.) Adjourn

Received on Monday, 8 December 2003 20:46:10 UTC