Proposed W3C Charter: Web Platform Working Group

[L. David Baron]

The W3C is proposing a revised charter for:

Web Platform Working Group (formerly Web Applications WG & HTML WG)
https://www.w3.org/2016/08/web-platform-charter-draft.html
https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-new-work/2016Sep/0001.html

Mozilla has the opportunity to send comments or objections through
this Friday, September 30.

Please reply to this thread if you think there's something we should
say as part of this charter review, or if you think we should
support or oppose it.

-David

--
𝄞 L. David Baron http://dbaron.org/ 𝄂
𝄢 Mozilla https://www.mozilla.org/ 𝄂
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
- Robert Frost, Mending Wall (1914)

[Ms2ger]

On 29/09/16 03:02, L. David Baron wrote:
> The W3C is proposing a revised charter for:
>
> Web Platform Working Group (formerly Web Applications WG & HTML WG)
> https://www.w3.org/2016/08/web-platform-charter-draft.html
> https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-new-work/2016Sep/0001.html
>
> Mozilla has the opportunity to send comments or objections through
> this Friday, September 30.
>
> Please reply to this thread if you think there's something we should
> say as part of this charter review, or if you think we should
> support or oppose it.
>
> -David
>

Given that (as I expected) the merger of the HTML WG with its profoundly
dysfunctional processes into the productive WebApps WG created a
completely useless WG, more focused on adding W3C logos to existing
standards than doing actual work, my proposal is to disband this WG and
move any remaining useful work to the WHATWG.

HTH
Ms2ger

[Tantek Çelik]

Note the major changes summary:

https://www.w3.org/2016/08/web-platform-charter-draft.html#changes-from-wp1

This is my first pass review (already found problems).

I may try to review in more depth to see what (if any) specific
wording changes there are in the charter (is there a paragraph by
paragraph diff avaiable?)


> New deliverables:
> Microdata

This should be dropped from the charter (FO).

Ironic to see this since Firefox (release!) just dropped support for
Microdata (a form of incubation failure at the least), and last time
it was brought up in HTML WG, no one bothered to step up to edit it so
it got abandoned as a note (2013).


> Removed as deliverables:
> Streams; URL; XHR1

This seems good to me, and reflective of the reality of referencing
equivalent WHATWG specs, and increasingly positive culture towards
doing so.


> Marked as deliverables to be taken up if incubation suggests likely success:
> Background Synchronisation; Filesystem API; FindText API; HTML Import; Input Methods; Packaging; Quota API

This section is confusing and weakly worded.

Expanded just below this link:
https://www.w3.org/2016/08/web-platform-charter-draft.html#web-workers
as <h4>Potential deliverables</h4> (no id / fraglink)

Either these are some sort of odd pre-incubation special treatment
(bad / unnecessary in a charter), or if this is a claim that the
listed specs *have* passed incubation, I'd expect citations that
document as such (not just a link to an intent template). Otherwise
wait for specs to pass incubation, document as such, and then propose
a charter update with actual (not "potential") deliverables.

I'd prefer that these "Potential deliverables" be dropped (FO), unless
citations are provided to incubation successes, and if so, then just
make them "deliverables".

Tantek

On Wed, Sep 28, 2016 at 6:02 PM, L. David Baron <dba...@dbaron.org> wrote:
> The W3C is proposing a revised charter for:
>
> Web Platform Working Group (formerly Web Applications WG & HTML WG)
> https://www.w3.org/2016/08/web-platform-charter-draft.html
> https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-new-work/2016Sep/0001.html
>
> Mozilla has the opportunity to send comments or objections through
> this Friday, September 30.
>
> Please reply to this thread if you think there's something we should
> say as part of this charter review, or if you think we should
> support or oppose it.
>
> -David
>

> --
> 𝄞 L. David Baron http://dbaron.org/ 𝄂
> 𝄢 Mozilla https://www.mozilla.org/ 𝄂
> Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
> What I was walling in or walling out,
> And to whom I was like to give offense.
> - Robert Frost, Mending Wall (1914)
>

> _______________________________________________
> dev-platform mailing list
> dev-pl...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-platform
>

[Boris Zbarsky]

On 9/29/16 10:46 AM, Tantek Çelik wrote:
>> New deliverables:
>> Microdata
>
> This should be dropped from the charter (FO).
>
> Ironic to see this since Firefox (release!) just dropped support for
> Microdata

Are they talking about the HTML microdata API (what we dropped) or just
specifying the HTML microdata attributes? The latter seems fine as a
deliverable, generally speaking. The deliverable doesn't actually say
what it's about.

-Boris

[Tantek Çelik]

All of what was previously abandoned. The charter
http://www.w3.org/2016/08/web-platform-charter-draft.html#deliverables
links to the 2013 Microdata Note.

"just specifying the HTML microdata attributes" seems like a waste of
time for a WG that already has lots of REC-track deliverables (and
sometimes shows a need for more focus, e.g. what happened with
5.1CR/PR vs what the current charter says about modularizing [1]).

Similarly, if there's anything else in the new charter that anyone
else thinks we should specifically cut (beyond "just cut it all"), I'm
interested in hearing about it. Cutting inessential things in this WG
will help with better focus and use of time / resources.

Tantek

[1] https://github.com/w3c/html/issues/507

[Boris Zbarsky]

On 9/29/16 11:21 AM, Tantek Çelik wrote:
> All of what was previously abandoned. The charter
> http://www.w3.org/2016/08/web-platform-charter-draft.html#deliverables
> links to the 2013 Microdata Note.

I did see that it linked to the note. It wasn't clear whether that
means "revive everything in that note".

I agree that reviving the microdata API is a non-starter. It was tried,
it failed.

> "just specifying the HTML microdata attributes" seems like a waste of
> time

That's fair.

-Boris

[L. David Baron]

On Thursday 2016-09-29 10:42 +0200, Ms2ger wrote:
> On 29/09/16 03:02, L. David Baron wrote:
> > The W3C is proposing a revised charter for:
> >
> > Web Platform Working Group (formerly Web Applications WG & HTML WG)
> > https://www.w3.org/2016/08/web-platform-charter-draft.html
> > https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-new-work/2016Sep/0001.html
> >
> > Mozilla has the opportunity to send comments or objections through
> > this Friday, September 30.
> >
> > Please reply to this thread if you think there's something we should
> > say as part of this charter review, or if you think we should
> > support or oppose it.

> Given that (as I expected) the merger of the HTML WG with its profoundly
> dysfunctional processes into the productive WebApps WG created a
> completely useless WG, more focused on adding W3C logos to existing
> standards than doing actual work, my proposal is to disband this WG and
> move any remaining useful work to the WHATWG.

I don't think suggesting that would be particularly productive.

Also, has the quality of the work that was previously in Web Apps
degraded significantly? (At least, more than would be expected as a
result of the departure of one of the Web Apps group's chairs?) If
you think it has, how would you show that it has?

[L. David Baron]

On Thursday 2016-09-29 07:46 -0700, Tantek Çelik wrote:
> > Marked as deliverables to be taken up if incubation suggests likely success:
> > Background Synchronisation; Filesystem API; FindText API; HTML Import; Input Methods; Packaging; Quota API
>
> This section is confusing and weakly worded.
>
> Expanded just below this link:
> https://www.w3.org/2016/08/web-platform-charter-draft.html#web-workers
> as <h4>Potential deliverables</h4> (no id / fraglink)
>
> Either these are some sort of odd pre-incubation special treatment
> (bad / unnecessary in a charter), or if this is a claim that the
> listed specs *have* passed incubation, I'd expect citations that
> document as such (not just a link to an intent template). Otherwise
> wait for specs to pass incubation, document as such, and then propose
> a charter update with actual (not "potential") deliverables.
>
> I'd prefer that these "Potential deliverables" be dropped (FO), unless
> citations are provided to incubation successes, and if so, then just
> make them "deliverables".

I'm a little concerned about making this a formal objection.
Rechartering is a somewhat painful process, and if a group thinks
that a particular incubation project is likely to suceed in the near
future and doesn't want to have to recharter again, it seems
reasonable to allow them to say that they'd like the result of that
incubation to be in their charter scope.

Or are these things that are just starting out rather than things
that have been in progress for a while? (That seems unlikely, since
I've been hearing about some of them for quite a while.)

[Tantek Çelik]

On Fri, Sep 30, 2016 at 12:51 PM, L. David Baron <dba...@dbaron.org> wrote:
> On Thursday 2016-09-29 07:46 -0700, Tantek Çelik wrote:
>> > Marked as deliverables to be taken up if incubation suggests likely success:
>> > Background Synchronisation; Filesystem API; FindText API; HTML Import; Input Methods; Packaging; Quota API
>>
>> This section is confusing and weakly worded.
>>
>> Expanded just below this link:
>> https://www.w3.org/2016/08/web-platform-charter-draft.html#web-workers
>> as <h4>Potential deliverables</h4> (no id / fraglink)
>>
>> Either these are some sort of odd pre-incubation special treatment
>> (bad / unnecessary in a charter), or if this is a claim that the
>> listed specs *have* passed incubation, I'd expect citations that
>> document as such (not just a link to an intent template). Otherwise
>> wait for specs to pass incubation, document as such, and then propose
>> a charter update with actual (not "potential") deliverables.
>>
>> I'd prefer that these "Potential deliverables" be dropped (FO), unless
>> citations are provided to incubation successes, and if so, then just
>> make them "deliverables".
>
> I'm a little concerned about making this a formal objection.
> Rechartering is a somewhat painful process, and if a group thinks
> that a particular incubation project is likely to suceed in the near
> future and doesn't want to have to recharter again, it seems
> reasonable to allow them to say that they'd like the result of that
> incubation to be in their charter scope.

That reasoning works for me.

However:

> Or are these things that are just starting out rather than things
> that have been in progress for a while? (That seems unlikely, since
> I've been hearing about some of them for quite a while.)

I don't know for each of the specific items, so I'm going to dig
deeper and see if I can determine their relative incubation maturity.
I too have been hearing about some of them for a while (e.g. BG sync).

I would have preferred that any such item come with a citation of a
specific "Intent to Migrate"[1] post with details for evaluation per
the WICG/WPWG's own processes but I'm not seeing any.

Also, just found this in the charter:
<a href="@@">announcement</a>
Not really acceptable.

Tantek

[1] https://wicg.github.io/admin/intent-to-migrate.html

[L. David Baron]

On Friday 2016-09-30 14:02 -0700, Tantek Çelik wrote:
> Also, just found this in the charter:
> <a href="@@">announcement</a>
> Not really acceptable.

I think it should link to the same URL as the other "(announcement)"
link.