Re: TAG and WWW Architecture

On 06 Jun 2001 10:00:51 -0400, Al Gilman wrote:
> So please don't go to W3C saying "stop this awful TAG stuff."  If you want to
> say "Architecture is very sensitive, the sunshine requirements for TAG
> proceedings should be even more intense than for normal working groups" that
> makes a lot of sense.  

I'd certainly argue that the TAG should face maximum sunshine. I
couldn't, in fact, be comfortable with a TAG that operates in anything
less than full sunshine - OASIS-TC-style at least.

> But the idea that the W3C has taken upon itself to claim
> a role of public trust, to make technical decisions on behalf of a wider
> community that lacks the communication tools to bring the same matters to
> resolution in as little calendar time -- that idea is hard-wired into the
> Consortium deal.  It's there with a TAG or without a TAG.  If you're
> spooked by privacy, push for sunshine.  But don't kill the TAG just because there is some
> privacy in the W3C's work rules.  The W3C badly needs the TAG so its various
> Recommendations speak with one mind.  Otherwise we will just have created a
> nice brand "w3.org" for yet another re-invention of the Tower of Babel.

For the W3C's sake, I can see where the TAG seems necessary to protect
its brand.  Unfortunately, I'm not sure that many developers, especially
on the XML side, have enough faith in the W3C to find a TAG inside the
W3C a good idea.  

The xml-uri discussion last year, with constant reference to "axioms"
published as Notes, was hardly an encouraging sign that the W3C was
interested in looking at ideas or experience outside of its own core.
The state of URIs in general, despite having been created in the more
open IETF framework, also suggests that mere sunshine is no guarantor of
interoperable and/or comprehensible systems.

To put it bluntly, I'd like to see the W3C return to an attitude that
Recommendations are effectively experimental, not fully-grown standards.
If a TAG were to act as an additional level on the W3C which blessed
successful recommendations and coordinated them, I'd congratulate the
W3C on a wise move.  If a TAG were to attempt to coordinate standards by
enforcing adherence to various axioms which are considered immutable,
I'd abandon what little hope I still retain for the W3C to be a help
rather than a hindrance for the Web.

And without sunshine - there's been none so far - there's no way
whatsoever to tell what's going on.

Received on Wednesday, 6 June 2001 11:41:08 UTC