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W3C Process and Tools 101

Thomas Roessler <tlr@w3.org>

W3C Core Values

Consensus
Interoperability
Good Design
Quality

Nuts and Bolts: The Process

Process is based on experience. For each rule in the process, there is a story of what happened before that rule was there.

Steps:

Preparation
Working Group, toward Last Call
Last Call
Candidate Recommendation
Proposed Recommendation
Recommendation (champagne!)

The plan for xmldsig-core

Recommendation & RFC -> Proposed Edited Recommendation -> Recommendation & RFC
PER is an instrument to propose changes that add no new functionality, but fix known problems
Entrance Criteria are equivalent to those for Proposed Recommendation
- Implementation experience to support changes
Publication as RFC
- outside W3C process
- Plan: IETF Last Call in parallel to review of Proposed Edited Rec.

The plan for the Decryption Transform

Return to Working Draft
Maybe we're confident that that's worth a Last Call already?
- "We're done"
Then through the rest of rec track

Working Group Mechanics

Tools

mailing lists
teleconferences and face-to-face meetings, supported by Internet Relay Chat
Issue and action tracking

... and Culture.

accountability -- document, explain and respond
openness and public visibility

Mailing list use

public-xmlsec-maintwg (Archive)
- publicly visible archive
- technical content goes here
- see "openness and public visibility"
member-xmlsec-maintwg (Archive)
- content on this list is W3C member-confidential
- administrivia go here
- interactions with member-confidential groups go here

Tool support: Using IRC in meetings

Multimodal Interactions

We meet in #xmlsec on irc.w3.org, port 6665.
Our robotic guests: Zakim, RRSAgent, trackbot
Zakim is connected to the phone bridge
- Queue management: "q+ to suggest switchig to Jabber", "q-", "q?", "ack"
- Muting and unmuting: "zakim, mute Thomas", "zakim, unmute Thomas"
- Associating your IRC nick name with a phone identity: "zakim, I am Thomas"
RRSAgent helps with minutes
trackbot helps with action item tracking
bugzilla for issues

Quick and dirty minutes, and how we do them: RRSAgent

It is better to have dirty minutes quickly than to have perfect minutes late.

Minutes are due 24h-48h after a meeting
Scribe role rotates among non-chair WG members
RRSAgent enables scribing on IRC
- See instructions
RRSagent auto-generates minutes; link and plain text are sent to public mailing list
- unless group decides to keep part of deliberations member confidential
- that's dealt with by exception handling

Action tracking: trackbot

Trackbot is tracker's eyes and ears on IRC
- "ACTION: Frederick to request Last Call"
- <trackbot> Created ACTION-171 - Frederick to request Last Call [on Frederick Hirsch - due 2006-06-30].
Tracker also eavesdrops on public e-mail list
- ACTION-171, ACTION-172, ... is a magic word. Tracker will automatically link all messages that mention this keyword to the corresponding action.
- ISSUE-815 works the same way
Web interface
- public interface is read-only
- member-confidential interface is read-write

Issue tracking: bugzilla

We've got space on W3C's public bugzilla
Going to imitate WS-Policy's issues process

Decision Making

The Process on Consensus

Consensus is a core value of W3C. To promote consensus, the W3C process requires Chairs to ensure that groups consider all legitimate views and objections, and endeavor to resolve them, whether these views and objections are expressed by the active participants of the group or by others (...). Decisions MAY be made during meetings (face-to-face or distributed) as well as through email. ...

1. Consensus: A substantial number of individuals in the set support the decision and nobody in the set registers a Formal Objection. Individuals in the set may abstain. Abstention is either an explicit expression of no opinion or silence by an individual in the set. ...

2. Dissent: At least one individual in the set registers a Formal Objection.

A "Formal Objection" means that a party wants the Director to review a technical decision at the next transition checkpoint.

Good Standing: Participation Expectations

The Process on Consensus, cont'd

"By default, the set of individuals eligible to participate in a decision is the set of group participants in Good Standing."

The Process on Standing

A participant MAY be declared in Bad Standing in any of the following circumstances:

the individual has missed more than one of the last three distributed meetings.

the individual has missed more than one of the last three face-to-face meetings.

the individual has not provided deliverables in a timely fashion twice in sequence.

the individual has not followed the conflict of interest policy by disclosing information to the rest of the group.

Patent Policy

For Decryption Transform, current W3C Patent Policy applies
- RF commitments are easy and the default
For XML Signature Syntax and Processing, Current Patent Practice applies
- See Patent Policy Transition Procedure
- No commitments obligatory; therefore, disclosure obligations as defined in current patent policy
- See me in the break if you need more.

Last Call: "We think we're done"

Starts with Working Group decision that all issues are addressed
Formally document dependencies
Formally address all issues

Candidate Recommendation "Implementations, Please!"

starts with Director's Decision that Last Call achieved sufficient review, consensus, etc.
formally document that all features are implemented
exit criteria, e.g.
- each feature, issue should have a test
- two implementations should pass all tests
formally address all issues