Thanks Murray (and Chris) for your responses. It sounds like the precedent I was asking about exists. That satisfies me. David
________________________________ From: Murray Maloney [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Fri 4/20/2007 2:45 PM To: Dailey, David P. Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [email protected]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Request for Decision: Design Principles At 02:22 PM 4/20/2007 -0400, David Dailey wrote: >This made me wonder something: > >Maciej has written >http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2007Apr/0911.html >concerning the proposed principles that > > >You can think of them as self-imposed amendments to the charter, so > >that we don't have to pick through the often vague language of the > >charter for justification. Since they are self-imposed, they are also > >less difficult to add or remove in response to feedback. All it takes > >is a decision of the group, not the full re-chartering process which > >is slow and disruptive. > >Has a W3C group ever modified its own charter in this way? If so was it >done by majority rule? I am not sure Maciej was being literal or not, but I did not interpret his suggestion as being an actual amendment to the charter as much as a virtual amendment. The XML Schema WG adopted a set of design principles as did the XML WG. >If there is a minority which opposes such a modification of a charter, >then it would seem that consensus has not been achieved and that an >official rechartering might be required. Maybe not. I suspect Karl may >know of precedents. Re-chartering is a rat hole that I don't want to go anywhere near. It is almost a miracle that we have this WG at all. Let's try hard to keep it together and not seek any more ways to tear it apart. >Or perhaps in some meta WG that oversees the specifications of charters, >there may be language that covers exactly this situation and that a >majority may, as it wishes, change things in this way. In the US, I think >one needs a 2/3 majority to change the constitution, plus some sort of >state-by-state referendum. Regards, Murray
