[html4all] WG Process

[Charles McCathieNevile]

On Tue, 26 Feb 2008 17:44:44 +0100, Philip Taylor (Webmaster)  
<P.Taylor at rhul.ac.uk> wrote:

> Once again, we gain an insight into how "WG Process"
> is interpreted by one of the HTML 5 editors :
>
>> Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 04:29:19 +0000 (UTC)
>> From: Ian Hickson <ian at hixie.ch>
>
>> Executive summary:
>>
>>  * Tentatively added <ol reversed> to make reverse lists. We'll remove  
>> it
>>    if browser vendors don't like it.
>
> Not "if the WG don't approve"; not "if consensus
> does not emerge", just simply "if browser vendors
> don't like it".

Maybe as a browser vendor people don't think much of my opinion, but with  
that disclaimer made...

Ian (and Dave, if he were actually editing rather than apparently being a  
fictional character as far as the spec goes) are effectively free to edit  
how they like until there is a working group decision. Ian's approach is  
basically that he thinks the browser makers are the most critical part of  
the chain, because if they don't implement then the spec is worthless  
anyway.

I have a lot of sympathy for that position - if you don't have  
implementation, you're writing fantasy, not a standard. On the other hand  
the browser makers (and particularly if you only mean 4 desktop browser  
makers rather than the dozens who are out there) are only one group of  
stakeholders - people who create authoring tools like Dreamweaver, Word,  
and various Content management systems are at least as important since  
browsers have to do something with what those systems produce (and always  
compete on how well they do that), and content producers large and small  
have things they need to put online and will put on in the best way they  
find, so their input is important too (although a large content producer  
or a solid bloc of content producers is more convincing than a handful of  
people on their own - such is realpolitik).

But I have no sympathy for any approach that doesn't make it clear that at  
the end of the process, the working group is the final arbiter of what the  
working group produces.

In particular, I agree that Ian's approach of asking people to split  
replies into various different places is counter productive since it means  
that the input to the decision making process is only clear to people who  
have time to follow everything Ian does (and as he says he works full-time  
on it, which is a luxury not enjoyed by the rest of us).

> I think I'm going to pull out of the HTML 5 WG
> completely; the whole exercise is, to my mind,
> simply degenerating into a farce, and is not
> something with which I'd like to be associated
> by those unfortunate enough to inherit the mess.

I think that would be a shame. I don't think the working group is a farce,  
although I do think the proces is not ideal. On the other hand, an ideal  
process would require resources that are not available, and I think that  
what we have is more or less workable. Added to the fact that HTML needs  
(IMHO) to be one clear spec and isn't going to vanish anyway, I will stick  
with the working group.

cheers

Chaals

-- 
Charles McCathieNevile  Opera Software, Standards Group
     je parle français -- hablo español -- jeg lærer norsk
http://my.opera.com/chaals   Try Opera 9.5: http://snapshot.opera.com