On Sun, Aug 9, 2015 at 9:59 PM, L. David Baron <dba...@dbaron.org> wrote: > The W3C is proposing revised charters for: > > Web Platform Working Group: > http://www.w3.org/2015/07/web-platform-wg.html > https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-new-work/2015Jul/0020.html
This charter doesn't mention the WHATWG by name and merely says "The Working Group will consider proposals for future specifications from Community Groups, encourage open participation from Community Group members, and keep coordination with relevant Community Groups, all within the bounds of the W3C patent policy and available resources." I'd like to know (preferably in the form of charter text) what the planned relationship with the WHATWG is supposed to be. Specifically, I don't expect this W3C group to be able to do a good job maintaining the features that are covered by actively maintained WHATWG specs except by having a fast, low-bureaucracy way to import spec text from the WHATWG. Having the W3C modularize (what year is this? 1999 all over again?) a WHATWG-originating spec with editorship "Up for taking" looks like the opposite of what's needed to have a fast, low-bureaucracy way to import spec text from the WHATWG. In general, modularizing the HTML spec for the sake of modularization seems useless busy-work. I think we should object to modularization for the sake of modularization. If there a bits that have an editor lined up and the browser vendors want to do non-maintenance development in the relevant area, then it might make sense to split out something on a case-by-case basis. Furthermore, merging HTML into WebApps seems low-risk only if there isn't much work to do around HTML. Activity around HTML seems to attract disruptions that would be unfortunate compared to WebApps going on operating without those disruptions. Therefore, it seems unwise to generate activity (such as pushing text around in order to modularize) around HTML needlessly if WebApps is to take over HTML. If an answer to the above is not already documented in public in a way that allows the W3C to be held to their word, I think we should ask about the above in our charter review comments. This charter includes the maintenance responsibility for a number of specs related to Widgets. Is this just a formality that pre-existing specs have to belong to *some* WG or is the group actually expected to spend time on maintaining Widgets? Does any vendor that can reasonably be expected to contribute staff time to the WG actually ship W3C Widgets or want to shift from whatever packaged Web app solution they do ship to W3C Widgets? It seems like a bad idea to put the group's time into Widgets if isn't the future we intend to pursue and, AFAICT, it isn't. > Timed Media Working Group > http://www.w3.org/2015/07/timed-media-wg.html > https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-new-work/2015Jul/0020.html > > The Web Platform Working Group ***replaces the HTML and WebApps > Groups***. > > The Timed Media WG splits some of the media work that was happening > in HTML (MSE, EME) into a separate group. What's the rationale for this split? I realize that the Media TF of the HTML WG has been operating rather separately from the rest of the HTML WG, but if the PP is the main value proposition of the W3C, doesn't dividing work into smaller WGs undermine that value proposition? On Mon, Aug 10, 2015 at 1:28 PM, Gervase Markham <g...@mozilla.org> wrote: > On 09/08/15 19:59, L. David Baron wrote: >> The Timed Media WG splits some of the media work that was happening >> in HTML (MSE, EME) into a separate group. > > Do we see a risk here that this group will become captured by the > promoters of DRM, more than was possible when it was done in the HTML WG? I think moving EME into a group of its own would carry a major risk of the group finding other DRM things to work on in order to perpetuate its own existence. That's why I've cautioned against kicking EME out of the HTML WG. Since the proposed WG is not a DRM WG but the media WG with substantial non-DRM work to do, I'm somewhat less worried about this proposed WG than I would be about an EME-only WG. As noted above, the media TF has already been operating relatively separately. In that sense, this split doesn't involve much of a change in terms of who subscribes to which mailing list and who follows which meeting minutes. However, I don't see any benefit from having a Timed Media Working Group compared to having a Timed Media Task Force of the Web Platform Working Group and I can see potential for the separate working group to have a downside. The proposed Web Platform Working Group covers so many things that it's obvious that no single participant is going to participate in the development of all the deliverables. In that context, I think it's weird to split MSE, EME and the <video>/<audio> parts of HTML5 maintenance into a separate WG. I think it would be reasonable for us to record a comment along the lines of the above paragraph and have Media as a TF of Platform. -- Henri Sivonen hsivo...@hsivonen.fi https://hsivonen.fi/ _______________________________________________ dev-platform mailing list dev-platform@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-platform
