Sam,
This message does not rise to the standards of civility you are trying
to set. Dave was trying to outline the issues in a constructive way,
and your response is hostile and snarky (for instance implying
cleverly that he should be ignored).
Regards,
Maciej
On Feb 5, 2009, at 5:49 AM, Sam Ruby wrote:
David Singer wrote:
I regret I am at an MPEG meeting and cannot dial in, as discussions
are ongoing...
On the spec. splitting discussion, I offer the following points in
an attempt to clear at least my mind:
* on literally splitting up the spec. that currently exists, and
having multiple editors and/or published documents, I believe the
editor (Ian) thinks this is more work rather than less, and doesn't
advance things, and I tend to defer to him;
* on whether the 'base material' of the current single monolith
could be 'profiled/reduced' by automated pre-processing so as to
make documents better suited to various audiences, I think the
answer is yes, and this seems like a nice idea, worth pursuing;
* on whether there should be additional, non-normative, documents
that help inform, educate, or assist various communities, I think
there is enthusiastic support and little opposition; the more we
help and inform, the better!
* on whether the 'reference', complete, normative spec. is likely
to be indigestible, I tend to think so, but it should exist;
I think the remaining unease concerns whether there should be
multiple documents, independently produced (i.e. not derived by an
automated process from a common base), that overlap and all/both
are normative. I think this causes a number of people significant
unease. That unease results in the suggestion that if we put
another document on a track to publication, we make it clear either
that it's intended to be published as informative, or that its
final publication status is undecided while we grapple with this
issue. We should not have an implied decision of normativity
result from an explicit decision to pursue publication.
Hope that helps; feel free to ignore me if not...
I don't intent to allow much time for discussion on this topic in
today's call. Mike has the task of enlisting at least two other
independent people who will commit to working on the spec in some
manner, at which point we will see if a poll is necessary (I hope
not but I expect so). Once that process is complete, we'll make an
assessment as to how to proceed.
Three points I'd like to address in your email.
I disagree with the presumption of there being *the* (as in
singular) editor for this working group. This working group must
either decide to significantly curtail the discretion it affords to
*the* editor, permit multiple editors to exist with equivalent
amounts of discretion, or face the rather significant possibility
that the levels of consensus that the W3C requires for Last Call and
beyond may never be within reach.
Secondly, the notion that a document is being developed with the
intention of being normative but may be marked as non-normative for
the moment in order to progress further down the process does not
settle well with me. To use your word, it makes me "uneasy". If
the intent is to be normative, I say let the document say so plainly
and clearly. Meanwhile I would like to give everybody who might
disagree with either some aspect the overall direction a document a
document is taking an opportunity to contribute a succinct, and
neutrally worded, description of the issue to be included in the
document itself. And I would like to apply that rule to all
documents this working group produces. In short: agree with the
suggestion that you close your email with.
And, thirdly, the idea that the base material can be profiled is, at
best, unproven. If somebody is willing to step up and do that work,
I would do everything I can to support having this working group
evaluate the results of that effort. But until such results are
produced, the current state is that such an effort might not be
feasible and that there are no current plans to do the work.
- Sam Ruby
