Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
On Jan 28, 2009, at 5:05 AM, Sam Ruby wrote:
Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
On Jan 27, 2009, at 10:19 PM, Sam Ruby wrote:
[moved to www-archive]
Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
I personally would prefer the Work Group spends its time
discussing actual tangible proposals. And to provide everybody
equal opportunity to produce such proposals.
I think anyone is free to make a proposal, but that doesn't mean we
should publish every proposal as a Working Draft.
This is an example of the a discussion that doesn't lead to HTML5
becoming a better spec.
My goal in this particular discussion is to prevent it from becoming
a worse spec, as I see it. Furthermore, I believe I have done more
than most people to make HTML5 a better spec, and on the whole I
don't think discouraging me from participating in mailing list
discussions will make HTML5 a better spec. I know you have done much
to make HTML5 a better spec as well, I am not trying to compare
credentials, but I do think it is unfair of you to lecture me on this
point.
Your credentials are unquestioned. It is that one specific statement
that borders on a tautology that I am questioning.
My statement was made in light of your suggestion to publish almost any
reasonable proposal as a Working Draft regardless of objection, as long
as a small number of people agree. My understanding, and correct me if I
am wrong, is that you indeed believe that "we should publish every
proposal as a Working Draft", with only the limitation that it be a
good-faith proposal with at least a handful of supporters. And I also
get the impression that you believe that if a proposal is not published
as Working Draft, then it is by definition not receiving fair
consideration. If I misunderstood your position, then please help me
understand. If I understood correctly, then I disagree, and the line you
quoted states the point of disagreement.
Closer.
I see a vast difference between "every proposal" to "reasonable
proposal". I also continue to see a vast difference between "agree" and
"and will agree to review and comment on the document". A difference
between "I'm not stopping you" and "I'm engaged".
For others joining this thread, here is the original proposal:
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2009Jan/0414.html
As near as I can tell, the process for FPWD is was designed to enable
widespread review, and not as a choke point. I'm confident that there
are mailing lists at the W3c where discussions as to whether or not FPWD
are necessary or even a good idea can be held. Until such is done, I'd
like this working group to operate under the assumption that they are.
Nor is it particularly good argument, as it is predicated on a fallacy:
http://www.fallacyfiles.org/eitheror.html
I do not see how my statement is an example of a false dilemma.
Indeed, quite the opposite. I am arguing for the middle ground of
giving proposals due consideration, and publishing those that have
undergone sufficient discussion and review, and which seem promising
enough to put on the standards track, as First Public Working Drafts.
Is there anything unreasonable about that?
Has anyone asked Mike to stop editing his document, demanded that he
remove it from W3C space, or refused to engage him on the technical
merits of his approach? To the contrary: many would love to discuss
what he is doing and why it may or may not be the right thing, but
you would like to barrel ahead without having that discussion.
Can we agree to simply capture the issues and move on? And to block
progress of any and all Working Drafts to the Proposed Recommendation
status until all such issues are disposed of one way or another?
No, we cannot agree to this. First of all, all serious known issues
should be disposed of by, at the very latest, Last Call. Thus, a Working
Draft should not even be in a position to proceed to PR if serious
disagreements remain unresolved. Further, I think some issues are of
sufficient gravity that they should be raised and discussed before even
the First Public Working Draft, and issues such as appropriate scope or
"should this even exist as a normative specification" are in this category.
Indeed, you and fellow co-Chair Chris Wilson both availed yourselves of
the opportunity to raise these kinds of issues as part of the process of
taking HTML5 to FPWD, and indeed sought to prevent publication until
some of them were resolved to your satisfaction. While you both
ultimately backed off in your opposition, I believe you were given more
than ample opportunity to be heard.
Are you going to allow others the same opportunity?
I believe I addressed all of the above in another email:
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2009Jan/0469.html
I used words which were unclear, you asked for a clarification, and I
have provided it.
If you think I am making weak arguments, then by all means, show me
why. But so far, you haven't directly engaged any of my substantive
points, instead diverting into this meta-meta-meta-discussion of
whether I should be making them.
The current process disenfranchises many. Perhaps not you, but many.
Have you considered whether you may be disenfranchising those who
disagree with you by forbidding them to even discuss the reasons for
their disagreement, or to propose alternate ways of proceeding and
giving justification for their stance?
I would like to enable more people to pursue alternate ways of
proceeding.
But ultimately, some alternatives are mutually exclusive. Either there
are multiple documents normatively specifying the same thing, or there
are not. Either there are disjoint specs for content producers and
content consumers (or some other non-feature-based line of division) or
not. At some point these decisions have to be made.
I'm merely suggesting that FPWD is not that point.
I believe that publishing an explicitly non-normative markup-only spec
is something almost everyone in the Working Group could agree on as a
first step, if we agree to later revisit the issue of whether it should
become a normative specification in its own right, once it has had all
the review and input we would like to expose it to. It seems wiser to me
to proceed with this widely agreeable compromise, rather than to push a
more controversial approach. I have not seen any comments from you on
that proposed approach.
If this were applied consistently to all WDs, I might understand that
argument. But I have zero interest in requesting that such a criteria
be applied to Hixie's draft. And even if I did not have that issue, the
thought asking reviewers to review drafts which are explicitly and
intentionally not written as they are intended is counter-productive.
I'd like to echo the suggestion made by Larry:
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2009Jan/0311.html
Let's ask that all working drafts make explicit notes of controversies,
and do so in a straightforward, non-histrionic way and get on with the
business of this working group which at this point is to publish working
drafts.
Regards,
Maciej
- Sam Ruby
