RE: SVG Tiny 1.2 is now a Candidate Recommendation

Hi, Maciej-

This is only a parial reply to your post, but please don't think that your
other points are going unheard.
 

Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
| 
| > Finally, in response to your call for implementors to "drop 
| out", I  
| > think
| > that is exactly the wrong approach.  Ask the implementors on the  
| > WG; they
| > are able to exert much more influence because they take an active  
| > role and
| > dedicate time to further their goals.
| 
| I do not think it should be required to participate in the WG for  
| one's concerns to be addressed in a reasonable manner. That is the  
| reason the W3C Process includes extensive public comment periods.

No, it's not necessary, and the great effort that was put into satisfying
commentors over the last 4 years bears that out.  I was merely describing
the reality of the most effective way of influencing the spec.

 
| As an example of a comment where I do not think my concerns were  
| reasonably addressed, see the thread starting at the following  
| message (which later continues in March):
| 
| http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-svg/2005Dec/0082.html
| 
| The responses to my concern that a proposed part of the spec could  
| not be safely implemented in any user agent that loads untrusted  
| content from the network (like, say, a web browser) were uniformly  
| negative and many times outright rude. The spec still contains the  
| problematic feature, which I don't think any browser-hosted  
| implementation can reasonably implement.

As far as the technical aspects of this, I think that the SVG WG did the
right thing in not specifying a security model.  Two other WGs that I belong
to, WebAPI and WAF, are addressing the security aspects of issues like this,
and I fully expect the SVG WG to normatively reference them going forward.


| The responses to many other comments, including those from other  
| reviewers, were similarly combative, and it is frustrating to 
| work in an environment where people trying to offer their   
| technical expertise are treated rudely.  I will note also
| that these are not just random trolls but people like myself,   
| Bjoern Hoermann, Ian Hickson, Boris Zbarsky and others with  
| a demonstrated high level of expertise in web technology. 

For my part, I have always tried to treat all commentors with respect, and I
think that everyone should.  This was sometimes hard when the commentors
themselves were abusive, though.  I am not interested in dissecting the
breakdown of communication that led to a combative environment that is
counterproductive to technical development.  Pointing fingers is pointless
(get it?).

But I am interested in making sure that going forward, this kind of nonsense
is not an issue.

The SVG WG has been discussing ways in which we can be more responsive,
including providing immediate acknowledgements of comments and questions
received, clarifying technical issues with the commentor in order to make
sure we are trying to solve the right problem in the right way, tracking
issues at a more exact level than a single email thread (which may in fact
contain multiple issues, or may be only part of a larger issue), providing
more public access to issue tracking, more explicit citations of technical
justifications, more frequent draft publications, and other remediations.
With the proper processes in place, it should be easier for everyone to make
sure that issues are clear.  I think that this will go a long way toward
reducing accidental errors, and relaxing some of the tensions that have
built up during the development of this spec.


| I do appreciate the work the WG did to address other areas of  
| incompatibility, but the spec remains, in my opinion, riddled with  
| problems, and it is difficult to justify continued participation in  
| the process under the current circumstances.

We will be moving forward with SVG Full 1.2, and our target there is
unquestionably desktop browsers.  I know you have doubts about the ability
to satisfactorially meet that goal given the context of SVG Tiny 1.2, but I
ask you to continue to work with us going forward.  I am confident that we
will be able to reach a solution that results in an excellent spec that is
mutually implementable.


Regards-
Doug

Received on Monday, 14 August 2006 17:04:59 UTC