On Jan 28, 2009, at 7:26 AM, Sam Ruby wrote:
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".
I believe that Mike's review has gotten a great deal of review and
commentary. In fact, I believe it has gotten quite a bit more from
those who would prefer not to publish it as FPWD, than from those who
would. Some of those issues are, however, fundamental to the nature of
the document.
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.
I still do not agree that our default assumption should be to proceed
to FPWD with any spec that passes the most basic threshold of
reasonableness. I'm not sure further discussion will lead to us
agreeing on this point. Ultimately we have to leave it to the Working
Group to decide in some fashion, either as to this FPWD or as to all
future proposed Working Drafts.
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.
It still sounds to me like you are unwilling to give others the same
opportunity for input that you yourself had and took advantage of
before becoming co-Chair.
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 strongly disagree that PR is that point. And I believe these issues
are reasonable to at least discuss before FPWD. Since your expectation
of the right point to discuss this seems to be unreasonably late in
the process, then I would prefer to see objections voiced sooner
rather than later.
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.
Since the Working Group already voted overwhelmingly to place the
HTML5 draft on the REC track as normative, I don't think there would
be any point to applying those criteria.
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.
I agree that Larry's proposed note should be added in any case, even
to the current Editor's Draft. I'm not sure whether I would vote yes
or no on such a draft. It would depend on the wording.
Regards,
Maciej
