Proposed W3C Charter: WebVR Working Group

[L. David Baron]

The W3C is proposing a new charter for:

WebVR Working Group
https://www.w3.org/2017/07/vr-wg-charter.html
https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-new-work/2017Jul/0002.html

Mozilla has the opportunity to send support, comments, or objections
through Friday, August 18. If this is work that we want to see
happen at W3C, we should explicitly support it; if there are things
we think should be different about the charter, this is the time to
say so.

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)

[Lars Bergstrom]

There is some contention in the WebVR community group around the submission
of this charter proposal, as there is currently no public support from any
of the implementers in making this transition away from a community group:
https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webvr/2017Jul/0056.html

I would certainly not support at this time and, depending on the
conversations in that group and timing of the below deadline, may suggest
that we oppose.
- Lars

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>
>

[L. David Baron]

On Wednesday 2017-07-12 06:48 -0500, Lars Bergstrom wrote:
> There is some contention in the WebVR community group around the submission
> of this charter proposal, as there is currently no public support from any
> of the implementers in making this transition away from a community group:
> https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webvr/2017Jul/0056.html

That's a little confusing to me given that there has been a good bit
of movement towards shipping WebVR in release versions of browsers.

Shipping things to the release channel (as opposed to just users on
nightly/beta channels or users who turn on experimental features)
means that Web content could start depending on the features at any
time, which means we might be stuck with them in their current form.

That suggests (if my understanding of the state of shipping to
release users is correct) that it's likely time for the
standardization process to also admit that it's no longer just
experimenting, but actually shipping real stuff.

-David

> I would certainly not support at this time and, depending on the
> conversations in that group and timing of the below deadline, may suggest
> that we oppose.
> - Lars
>
>
> On Tue, Jul 11, 2017 at 12:23 PM, L. David Baron <dba...@dbaron.org> wrote:
>
> > The W3C is proposing a new charter for:
> >
> > WebVR Working Group
> > https://www.w3.org/2017/07/vr-wg-charter.html
> > https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-new-work/2017Jul/0002.html
> >
> > Mozilla has the opportunity to send support, comments, or objections
> > through Friday, August 18. If this is work that we want to see
> > happen at W3C, we should explicitly support it; if there are things
> > we think should be different about the charter, this is the time to
> > say so.
> >
> > 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.

[Jet Villegas]

There's a lot of maneuvering going on with all the WebVR browser vendors
about which VR hardware vendors will get "Tier 1" support. The support
matrix can get quite complex as more vendors come in, and many of these new
vendors will not be W3C members. It would be good to encourage a more
inclusive spec process that doesn't unfairly burden new entrants with
unnecessary bureaucracy.

That said, I'm concerned about the ambiguity around specs like WebVR 1.1
(which we're shipping in FF55). From the spec draft
<https://w3c.github.io/webvr/spec/1.1/>:

*Deprecated API*


*The version of the WebVR API represented in this document is does not
represent the final shape of the API. While the API is being finalized
support for this version may temporarily be available in some browsers but
is expected to be replaced eventually.*

The statement above is weird to me. While I do expect that APIs evolve over
time, just as most Web APIs do, it seems rather heavy-handed for the spec
editor to state ship/support policy for all the browser vendors. Vendors
may decide to support for this API long-term, or not support a 2.0 API, or
decide to work on 2.0 for a while but still allow for users to build WebVR
apps today. In any case, vendors are shipping to their release channels,
and we should have more rigor around what that means for "experimental"
features.

--Jet

[Lars Bergstrom]

Thanks for pointing that text out, Jet! Samsung Internet, Oculus Browser,
Microsoft Edge, and Firefox have all either shipped or have plans to ship
the released version of the WebVR API (see
https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2017/06/01/mozilla-brings-virtual-reality-to-all-firefox-users/
for a table) and support it, even after the (non-breaking) work is done to
evolve the API. I'll work with our colleagues to update the language there,
since it's clearly inconsistent with our commitments. And the fact that, as
David alludes to, not only are browser vendors shipping it, but major tool
vendors and frameworks are relying on it. A-Frame content alone is
downloaded more than 12 million times a month, and there's at least as much
WebVR content out there that uses other frameworks or raw access to the API.

w.r.t. the "deprecated" vs. draft APIs, a hard constraint on the current
effort is that there are no breaking changes and both versions can be
supported side by side or from one to another via a polyfill. Our current
plan is to implement one and support the other via polyfill, but other
browser engines plan to support both natively.

w.r.t. hardware vendors, I would expect them to participate more heavily in
the OpenXR effort, which will define which of their hardware features will
be exposed to all native VR applications. We hope to support to that in the
future, but it will take time for all that to shake out. Fortunately, OSVR
and OpenVR get us at least basic access to the majority of desktop VR
devices, though mobile is currently still evolving and a bit more messy.
- Lars

[L. David Baron]

On Wednesday 2017-07-12 12:20 -0700, L. David Baron wrote:
> On Wednesday 2017-07-12 06:48 -0500, Lars Bergstrom wrote:
> > There is some contention in the WebVR community group around the submission
> > of this charter proposal, as there is currently no public support from any
> > of the implementers in making this transition away from a community group:
> > https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webvr/2017Jul/0056.html
>
> That's a little confusing to me given that there has been a good bit
> of movement towards shipping WebVR in release versions of browsers.
>
> Shipping things to the release channel (as opposed to just users on
> nightly/beta channels or users who turn on experimental features)
> means that Web content could start depending on the features at any
> time, which means we might be stuck with them in their current form.
>
> That suggests (if my understanding of the state of shipping to
> release users is correct) that it's likely time for the
> standardization process to also admit that it's no longer just
> experimenting, but actually shipping real stuff.
>
> -David
>
> > I would certainly not support at this time and, depending on the
> > conversations in that group and timing of the below deadline, may suggest
> > that we oppose.

So the deadline is now approaching. Is there any update here?

I still think opposing this charter because the group should still
be in the incubation phase would be inconsistent with our shipping
and promotion of WebVR.

-David

[Daniel Veditz]

On Wed, Aug 16, 2017 at 3:51 PM, L. David Baron <dba...@dbaron.org> wrote:

> I still think opposing this charter because the group should still
> be in the incubation phase would be inconsistent with our shipping
> and promotion of WebVR.
>

​I agree that would be exceptionally odd and require a well reasoned
argument about why formal standardization was inappropriate.

I'm troubled that the members of the incubation group seem to feel that
chairs are being imposed on them who have been less involved (or
uninvolved?) with leading the feature to the point it's gotten so far. But
I don't understand the politics of that or whether we could or should get
involved on that point.

-Dan Veditz

[Eric Rescorla]

On Wed, Aug 16, 2017 at 5:18 PM, Daniel Veditz <dve...@mozilla.com> wrote:

> On Wed, Aug 16, 2017 at 3:51 PM, L. David Baron <dba...@dbaron.org> wrote:
>
> > I still think opposing this charter because the group should still
> > be in the incubation phase would be inconsistent with our shipping
> > and promotion of WebVR.
> >
>
> ​I agree that would be exceptionally odd and require a well reasoned
> argument about why formal standardization was inappropriate.
>

This puzzles me as well. Lars, can you explain what the argument against
standardization of a shipping feature is?

-Ekr

>
> I'm troubled that the members of the incubation group seem to feel that
> chairs are being imposed on them who have been less involved (or
> uninvolved?) with leading the feature to the point it's gotten so far. But
> I don't understand the politics of that or whether we could or should get
> involved on that point.
>
> -Dan Veditz

[Lars Bergstrom]

I'll follow up more with the chairs of the community group (they just had a
face to face earlier this week and I presume it came up). The last bit that
I heard is consistent with what Dan mentioned - the concern is not around
standardization but that neither the chairs nor the browser vendors nor the
major hardware providers were consulted publicly in the creation of a
proposal to transition to a working group:
https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webvr/2017Jul/0083.html

Based on that thread, I'd expect the proposal to be withdrawn or - as Dan
mentioned - things adjusted to involve the the current spec contributors.

I'll try to get on the phone with folks to find out more and get something
to dbaron by tomorrow. I'm not familiar with the inner workings of the W3C,
but I find it hard to imagine how things will go well with none of the
current spec contributors involved.
- Lars

[Tantek Çelik]

Given that we have a day left to respond to this poll, we should begin
writing up at least a draft answer with known facts that we can
iterate on as we get more information.

Rough draft WebVR proposed charter response points for consideration:


1. Timing is good. We think WebVR is ready for a WG to formally standardize it.

[Our very action of shipping a WebVR feature publicly (without pref)
speaks louder than any words on any email lists (including this one)
and communicates that we think WebVR is ready for adoption on the open
web (if that were not true, we should not be shipping it publicly, but
my understanding is that that decision has been made.), and thus ready
for rapid standardization among implementers.]

2. WG charter details bad. We have strong concerns about the proposed
WG charter as written, including apparent disconnects with the CG, and
in particular failure to involve implementers (e.g. browser vendors
and major hardware providers).

3. Conclusion: Formal objection. Charter bad, needs to be withdrawn,
be rewritten in an open dialog with the CG, such that there is at
least rough consensus with the CG on scope, chairs, and other details.


I believe these points reflect our actions and what Lars has communicated below:

On Thu, Aug 17, 2017 at 9:14 AM, Lars Bergstrom <lars...@mozilla.com> wrote:
> I'll follow up more with the chairs of the community group (they just had a
> face to face earlier this week and I presume it came up). The last bit that
> I heard is consistent with what Dan mentioned - the concern is not around
> standardization

Thanks for the clarification, thus point 1.

> but that neither the chairs nor the browser vendors nor the
> major hardware providers were consulted publicly in the creation of a
> proposal to transition to a working group:
> https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webvr/2017Jul/0083.html

Thus point 2.

> Based on that thread, I'd expect the proposal to be withdrawn or - as Dan
> mentioned - things adjusted to involve the the current spec contributors.

Thus point 3 - we should openly advocate for the proposed charter to
be withdrawn and rewritten accordingly.

> I'll try to get on the phone with folks to find out more and get something
> to dbaron by tomorrow. I'm not familiar with the inner workings of the W3C,
> but I find it hard to imagine how things will go well with none of the
> current spec contributors involved.

Short answer: historically when W3C WGs move forward without strong
implementer participation, they have very low chances of success, high
chances of failure, and especially of damaging good will in relevant
communities. Your concerns are merited.

More information definitely appreciated to help iterate on our response.

Thanks Lars,

Tantek

[Lars Bergstrom]

Thanks, Tantek! I like this response. I have not been able to reach
google/microsoft but will inform them of this intention.

To reinforce point #1, I'd add that WebVR is currently under TAG review
(see https://github.com/w3ctag/design-reviews/issues/185 ). Standardization
is definitely the intended path here.
- Lars

On Thu, Aug 17, 2017 at 5:33 PM, Tantek Çelik <tan...@cs.stanford.edu>
wrote:

[L. David Baron]

OK, here's a draft of Tantek's points in a form that I think we
could submit. Please let me know if there are things you think I
should change:

-----
We support the idea of bringing WebVR into a working group at the W3C.

However, bringing work that has been incubating in a community group (CG) into a working group (WG) requires more interaction with the existing CG than has happened here. While we are aware that not all members of the CG support moving the work into a WG, we would like to see the process of developing a WG charter involve the existing CG more, and try to find an acceptable compromise that allows the formation of a WG.

We're objecting because we believe this charter should be redrafted in a dialog with the existing Co
mmunity Group, in order to build consensus there on the scope of the working group, its relationship to the community group, and other details.
-----

-David

[Eric Rescorla]

LGTM

-Ekr