Summary of status of TAG issue xmlVersioning-41

Since some of our new TAG members are coming up to speed on where the TAG 
stands with its work on versioning ISSUE-41, I thought it might be useful 
to try and summarize in one place where I think we stand with work done to 
date:

We worked for many years preparing draft documents discussing evolution 
and versioning of languages [1,2,3].   At our meeting of 9-11 Dec 2008 we 
resolved [4] to publish the draft on versioning strategies not as a TAG 
Finding, but as a W3C note.  The scribing of that resolution was 
discovered to be somewhat ambiguous, so on 29 January 2009 resolved the 
following clarification [5]:

RESOLUTION: Clarifying the resolution reached at the 9-11 Dec. 2008 F2F, 
the versioning finding will be published by as a W3C Working Group Note, 
acknowledging history of TAG work and input, and making clear lack of TAG 
consensus on the contents.

As noted in the email just sent, at our Kansas City meeting [6] we 
discussed an email in which Jonathan Rees proposed a formalism for 
thinking about versioning [7].   Those same Kansas City minutes include 
the assignment of three significant action items:

ACTION-181 - Update versioning formalism to align with terminology in 
versioning compatibility strategies [on Jonathan Rees - due 2008-10-02 ]
ACTION-182 - Provide example for jar to work into the formalism [on David 
Orchard - due 2008-10-02 ]
ACTION-183 - Incorporate formalism into versioning compatibility 
strategies [on David Orchard - due 2008-10-02]. 

Actions 181 and 182 have since been closed, and 183 remains open.  We have 
also since assigned several more issues:

ACTION-165 on John Kemp to Formulate erratum text on versioning for the 
web architecture document - due 2009-02-24, pending review
ACTION-221 on Jonathan Rees to Work with Dave Orchard to close up the 
formalism facet of the versioning document, due in two weeks - due 
2009-02-24, pending review
ACTION-229 on Noah Mendelsohn to Noah to respond to John Kemp proposal of 
Feb 17 on versioning - due 2009-03-13, open
ACTION-241 on Larry Masinter to Review TAG versioning situation and report 
back to TAG and HTML - due 2009-03-12, open

So, it's my understanding that the status of ISSUE-41 nets out as:

* The drafts that Dave Orchard spent several years helping us to write 
will be published as W3C notes, with an effort made to incorporate the 
formalism
* Larry is going to drive a review on how the TAG might be helpful to the 
HTML community with respect to extensibility and versioning
* John and Noah will explore revisions to the AWWW, which currently 
advises [8] "A data format specification SHOULD provide for version 
information."  Noah wrote a TAG blog entry awhile ago [9] questioning the 
wisdom of that advice.
* Many TAG members seem to feel that Jonathan's work on formalism is 
promising, but except for encouraging Dave Orchard to include it in the 
W3C, we at this time have no formal activity scheduled to follow up on the 
formalism.

BTW: it would be great if a TAG member would volunteer to shepherd 
ISSUE-41 (XMLVersioning-41), as the issue description currently lacks any 
clear explanation of status or links to the above references.  I expect 
the summary above would be a good start.  Thank you.

Noah

[1] http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/versioning
[2] http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/versioning-compatibility-strategies
[3] http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/versioning-xml
[4] http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/2008/12/09-minutes.html#item03
[5] http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/2009/01/29-minutes#item04
[6] http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/2008/09/25-minutes#item07
[7] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2008May/0155.html
[8] http://www.w3.org/TR/webarch/#versioning
[9] http://www.w3.org/QA/2007/12/version_identifiers_reconsider.html 


--------------------------------------
Noah Mendelsohn 
IBM Corporation
One Rogers Street
Cambridge, MA 02142
1-617-693-4036
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Received on Tuesday, 24 March 2009 14:40:05 UTC