On 21 January 2026 19:12:10 GMT, Edmond Dantes <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Unless I missed something, there was never a discussion of what a Working 
>> Group should look like, what its aims were, how it would report back to the 
>> mailing list, etc.
>
>Yes, we don’t have a working group like that. And I’m afraid I don’t
>know how it could come into existence.
>I don’t have the authority to create "such" a group, and I’m not aware
>of who does.


Indeed, nobody does, and that is a problem. It's not an insurmountable problem 
though: we just have to bootstrap our way towards one.

A lot of management processes recognise that sometimes you have to step back 
and not just talk about how to build things, but talk about how to talk about 
building things. Ridiculous as it seems, sometimes you do need a meeting called 
"Project Planning Planning".

So in this case, we need to start from what we *do* have: this list, and the 
RFC process. We can have a discussion on the list, leading to a policy RFC, 
about what "Working Groups" could be used for, how one would be set up, what 
powers and responsibilities they would have relative to existing processes, 
etc. Once we've agreed that policy, there *will* be someone with the authority 
to create a WG for True Async.

(Or maybe during the discussion we decide "Working Group" is the wrong name and 
concept, but we agree *some* new process for Project Planning, or Roadmapping, 
or whatever. And then *that* process is available for True Async.)

That may seem a bit tedious and bureaucratic, but I can't see any other way of 
tackling a change of this magnitude and importance. 25 years ago, a couple of 
Israeli students could come and say "we've got some bold ideas of turning this 
web page toolkit into a proper programming language", and just get on with it; 
but now, every decision we make affects millions of users, and becomes 
immensely difficult to undo.



Rowan Tommins
[IMSoP]

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