Final Minutes of 23-February-2004 Teleconference

QA Working Group Teleconference
Monday, 23-February-2004
--
Scribe: Mark Skall

Attendees:

(DH) Dominique Hazaël-Massieux (W3C)
(LH) Lofton Henderson (CGMO - WG co-chair)
(LR) Lynne Rosenthal (NIST - IG co-chair)
(MS) Mark Skall (NIST)
(KD) Karl Dubost (W3C, WG co-chair)
(PC) Patrick Curran (Sun Microsystems)

Regrets:

(SM) Sandra Martinez (NIST)
(dd) Dimitris Dimitriadis (Ontologicon)
(MC) Martin Chamberlain (Microsoft)
(AT) Andrew Thackrah (Open Group)
(DM) David Marston


Absent:

(VV) Vanitha Venkatraman (Sun Microsystems)



Summary of New Action Items:

AI-20040223-1 LH will ask Jeremy for more detail on CR-41 (various 
violations of process and pub rules) by Feb. 25.

Agenda: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-qa-wg/2004Feb/0061.html
Previous Telcon Minutes: 
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-qa-wg/2004Feb/0062.html

Minutes:



1.) Roll call 11am EDT, membership

2.) Routine business

         - (June) F2F venue needed (constraints).

LH - Looking for a host for June ff.  Due to be in North America, 
preferably out of the US.  We will discuss this at the f2f mtg in 
Nice.  Check with company and see what you can offer.


         - TestGL SoTD point to TestGL (raw) issues?

LH - Should TestGL point to raw issues list of TestGL?
PC  Not necessary.
DH  Should link to issues list.
LH  We will plan to do that.
LH  Abstract restricts document to conformance test materials.  Is this right?
PC - Yes, but we’re struggling with it.
LH  “Usable and useful”  doesn’t have to be conformance test materials.
LH  Should take conformance out of abstract.
MS  Does this have to do with interoperability testing vs. conformance testing?

3.) Confirm WCAG answers

LH  We should get a consensus reply to WCAG rather than my opinions.
LR and DH agree with replies.  No dissenting opinion.  Will tell Olivier 
that these are consensus answers.

4.) QAF CR issues

LH  We now have 58 issues queued, including a dozen major conceptual 
issues.  Will queue all the specific issues.  Reference 2 provides an 
overview of major issues.  Today we will try to get owners for more of the 
issues to generate initial proposals for issues and to preview a summary of 
discussions that QA Chairs have been having.  QA Chairs are proposing a 
plan for QA framework.  Reference 4 is a summary of that proposal.  We’d 
like to look at it today so that we can discuss it at f2f next week.

KD  Keep in mind that it’s important to continue the work, but not 
necessarily the same work.  Should make QA more acceptable by W3C at every 
level.  Need more participation.  QA framework may be a bit 
different.  People need to be more creative.  What would you like to have 
to do QA in your WG?   Try to create ways to not make it a burden

LH  Will characterize major issues.  Got some positive feedback from some 
groups like WAI, but got a lot of indifference or hostility.  Most of 
feedback is coming from Web Ontology and Jeremy Carroll.  Web Ontology 
tried to apply OPS Guidelines to their work.  That effort was the source of 
a lot of the comments that they sent to us.

LH  First point is that framework family is perceived as too big and too 
expensive, inconsistent and incomplete and too much of a burden on 
WGs.  Web Ontology says they have developed “useful” conformance test 
materials (that they think is useful).  They feel that our documents should 
not constrain WGs.  They suggest that these should not be mandatory.  Ops 
Guidelines and Intro should be rolled together into a primer.  They feel 
“must” is way overused.

LH  Jeremy Carroll’s major conceptual issues  He says we are violating a 
W3M mandate constraining WGs in Rec track documents.  QA framework is just 
test development framework, not QA framework.  QAWG has failed to meet 
quality commitments we made in charter for AAA conformance.  Documents 
should be informative.  All parts of QA framework must advance synchronously.

LH  Will ask Jeremy for more detail on CR-41 (various violations of process 
and pub rules) by Feb. 25.

LH  Reference 4 is an unendorsed proposal as to how to handle these 
critical challenges.

MS  How has W3M reacted to this criticism?

DH  We need to decide future.  We can then tell W3M how we intend to proceed.

LH  We’re looking at a precursor of the document we would submit to 
W3M  try to achieve consensus on this next week.

LH  Summary of proposal.  Looked at a range of possibilities from stopping 
to full speed ahead  converged on the following: Don’t progress OpsGL as 
separate normative parts, but take best parts and combine them into a user 
friendly QA handbook.  Simplify spec components and progress SpecGL as 
normative GL.  Progress TestGL in background commensurate with 
resources.  KD has made proposal to restructure documents and provide 
informational materials with each area/topic.

MS  Are these criticisms the norm or are these people just more outspoken? 
Do most people, who have said nothing, agree with the way we were 
going?  Shouldn’t we get the feel of W3C in Tech plenary?

LR  Some of these proposals we agree with in any case and are not just 
responses to criticism.

MS  Should separate proposal to 2 parts  things we agree with anyway and 
things that are response to criticism. We should try to find out if 
criticisms are shared with inside W3C.

LH  We will discuss strategy next week.


Adjourn at 1205.



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Mark Skall
Chief, Software Diagnostics and Conformance Testing Division
Information Technology Laboratory
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8970
Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8970

Voice: 301-975-3262
Fax:   301-590-9174
Email: skall@nist.gov
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