Meeting minutes
This meeting
Nigel: Agenda for today is: Charter status, Defining a Registry, and IMSC-HRM.
… One AOB is the upcoming DST changes.
… Any other points to raise?
group: none
Charter status
Nigel: Not sure if everyone has seen Amy's and Florian's emails from earlier today/yesterday.
… Thank you Florian for joining us.
Florian: We (the Council) knows this has been taking longer than expected.
… Various reasons. One consequence is we entered a time when Amy has diminished availability,
… which didn't help.
… The AB and the Process CG have recently introduced a new provision to the Process
… allowing a change of Chair in a Council, which has enabled Amy
… to recognise that they did not have the time, and to pass it on, namely to me.
… This what happened recently.
… You discovered I was a Chair roughly the same time as I did!
… I haven't been in the role for 24 hours yet.
… Another thing that unfortunately took a while, and, having read your WG minutes,
… I'm unsure how clearly the situation was explained.
… Hopefully a repetition of things you already know.
… The Council has one power, which is, after being sufficiently informed,
… decide if the FO stands, or if they don't, in which case we overrule them and the Decision goes forward.
… That's the only thing we have the power to do.
… However while listening to everyone, we can observe opportunities for consensus,
… which is what we tried to do. We thought that some possibly ambiguous text can
… be adjusted if all parties agree.
… If that happens, the objection disappears and there's no role for the Council, which disbands.
… If you and the objectors fail to reach consensus then we're back to where we are.
… We thought we had an idea, you responded quickly, then it took time to get a response
… from the objectors. Possibly we should not have waited that long before
… observing that we have not reached consensus, and done what we're about to do.
… The Council knows that you're waiting.
… There's another part of what we're doing to prevent what happened this time or to future Councils.
… We are including the Council's team contact within the Council directly.
… It was designed for the Council to work in closed session with public conclusions.
… Initially the team contact was not included, so there was nobody other than ourselves to tell us when we were not
… doing the right things, or doing things in time.
… The follow-up actions with the objectors did happen, but might have happened faster.
… The process has now been modified, so I would expect us to be more reactive in future.
… I believe another thing that made you wait is that the Council started on Nov 3rd, and at that
… point you had already been waiting quite a while.
… The Process was clear about what needed to happen, but it is high level.
… It does not include operational details, like who should send what email to whom.
… It is not yet publicly documented but the Team has a private checklist which will be published on /Guide.
… They did not have that when this started.
… This also happened while W3C was trying to setup a Board of Directors and a Legal Entity which made the Team busier.
… So there were unusual bottlenecks that shouldn't occur in the future.
… I want to apologise on behalf of the Council for the time it has taken.
… We know timeliness is important.
… I am hopeful that within a couple of weeks we should be able to get back to you and the community
… with a decision. That's where we are. The status is that the suggestion we made did not lead to
… consensus, so we're where we are but with some additional information.
Nigel: Thank you.
Pierre: Quick question. Thanks for the summary.
… What is the new information that you just mentioned?
… If there's new information then the TTWG and other proponents might wish to respond.
Florian: It's the notes from your session and the comments from the objectors in response to the changes you proposed to accept.
… I can't comment on what the Council members will think of it.
… The additional interaction might influence what people think, potentially.
Pierre: It would be useful to know what new information will be considered by the Council.
… Going in, we knew what information had been submitted.
… Is it possible to get a list of the information that's new and relevant.
Florian: The minutes of this WG;
<florian> https://
Florian: the responses from the objectors to the changes you proposed. (see above)
<florian> https://
Florian: Also ^ if you have access. It's member only. I can't change access levels.
Pierre: Thank you
Florian: Whether this is material or not will depend on the Council members' judgement.
Pierre: Usually when a group makes a decision it's important to know all the input information.
… This group put a lot of effort into crafting input into the council.
… When is the deadline for providing updated information?
Florian: The Council as convened Nov 3 has a deadline of 45 days to solve it or explain why it isn't solved.
… Amy provided an update in January, and they and I provided another update today.
… That's a requirement, when we're slow we need to tell you why.
Pierre: I don't know if we want to update the group's input based on that response from Tantek.
… Tess just says they don't agree, but Tantek provides additional information.
… I don't know if we want to review the input provided.
Florian: I would encourage you to say if you have any new response to Tantek.
… If you tell me now I'll convey as best I can. Or tell me later and point me to it.
Pierre: That's why I wanted to know when you plan to meet next.
… I doubt it will change the input significantly but it might provide additional context.
Florian: We're back to the original report based on the lack of consensus coming from the first response.
… I don't think the new information is especially informative.
… If you do want to clarify anything, that's always welcome.
… I don't think you want us to stop and wait.
… I expect us to meet early next week. Pencilled in, trying to confirm.
<florian> There seems to be some confusion as to exactly what text the council suggested. The suggest text is in https://
Nigel: Discrepancy between the written proposal and what we ended up doing
… based on conversation in our meeting. Looking for clarity in any further proposals so we have
… more certainty.
Florian: I understand.
Nigel: Other question: you mentioned Tantek. It's unclear to us whether Tantek / Mozilla's objection
… needs to be resolved based on the timing of its submission.
Florian: As a process reader / editor, my reading is that anybody can object to any decision any time.
… There are well guided times for doing so, but there are no limitations to the timing.
… If an objection happens after a decision has already been applied, you're talking about undoing something rather than doing
… something different. It is preferable to talk early rather than later.
… Given that Mozilla talked before the Charter was approved, we have to take notice of it.
… It still holds as an objection, is my personal take on the Process.
Nigel: You may know that we did not discuss with Mozilla because we were guided that it did not hold.
Florian: I did notice that in the report, and that's unfortunate.
… This makes me think that maybe a Process consultancy CG for answering interpretation questions
… about the Process could be helpful.
… I would say in general feedback from everyone always needs to be addressed.
… The less specific and later, the less you need to worry about it, but even then issues need to be addressed.
Pierre: Just reading Tantek's reply to the member charter review,
… I want to make sure of, and I think it's clear in the Team Report,
… Tantek, I think consistently, indicates that he's very concerned that there
… would be an attempt to proceed to Rec with solely a single open source implementation.
… I think it's clear that's not the TTWG plan.
… The plan is at least one validator but also content produced by a number of other independent parties.
Nigel: IMSC-HRM specifically?
Pierre: Yes correct.
Florian: I think that point has been conveyed.
… What may be less clear (speaking for myself) is if you have a validator
… and an open source implementation or several validators or several pieces of content which of
… these factors do you intend to apply to what sort of things. [thinks]
… I think it's a different situation. A "silly" example out of context.
… Imagine we're talking about a hypothetical variant of HTML, that requires authors to write document so that that every image
… element contains a descendant element with an alternate text.
… Then authors could not write a conformant document because no child of image is permitted.
… They would have to use an attribute insteda.
… You would have to have an authoring requirement that you demonstrate to be implementable.
… It is a different situation to have a consuming and a producing implementation exchanging
… content but only having a single one of each.
… I don't want to say what is acceptable, just that these are two different situations
… and I'm not clear which one of these you intend.
Pierre: My personal plan with IMSC-HRM, which I think is in the Team Report....
… IMSC-HRM is a content spec, and the document has been updated to make it clear.
… The plan that we have is to get content from multiple independent sources, to use your example,
… that these sources believe are valid and conformant, and confirm that their expectations are correct.
… - according to the model in the specification, using the open source tool to make that determination.
Florian: The success criteria of the Charter apply to all of the deliverables.
… Some of the deliverables include a rendering model. If you're talking about
… specification requirements that only talk about exchanging data, then I suppose a producer and
… a consumer are two implementations, but they are not two implementations of rendering data.
Pierre: Correct. Just to roll back the clock, in my mind the reason the wording in the proposed Charter
… was crafted was to give TTWG the flexibility to pick the exit criteria that best match the type of specification,
… because TTWG has different types. I don't think the plan is to change the criteria for specs that are
… for instance renderer specs, or have a defined presentation engine.
… Again, going back in time, the motivation for the flexible language in the Charter, while staying
… in the spirit of the process, was to give exit criteria that match the needs of the spec.
Florian: What sounds like a good idea to the Council, and the objectors may be different, the Council previously thought
… that the previous proposal would give enough flexibility.
… Different requirements for different kinds of specification. You'd be able to pick any two that
… corresponded to that requirement.
Pierre: That's exactly the spirit of how the TTWG charter was crafted. precisely for that flexibility,
… not to avoid having to demonstrate interop.
Nigel: Yes
Florian: So far the Council has not come up with any determination in either direction.
Pierre: Florian. what you just said a few seconds ago, if you feel this is well understood within the council,
… I don't think further input is needed.
Florian: A meta-question: do you immediately publish minutes?
Nigel: Yes, usually soon after the meeting.
Florian: I'll review the log straight after then.
Nigel: Thank you
Andreas: Going back to your comment Florian that you understood that one word made the difference
… to the Objector. I'm not sure if I'm too simplistic, but if for the group this word didn't make the
… difference then the logical conclusion is that inserting the word would be acceptable for that objector?
Florian: I believe Tess has indicated that inserting that word would have been okay for Apple, but not that
… it would be okay for Mozilla.
Andreas: Could we say this is possible, so that we would satisfy at least one objector?
Nigel: I think we didn't quite understand it, actually.
… We didn't understand how content could be produced without a content producing implementation.
Gary: I think implementation by itself disambiguates it from just a person writing content.
… I think the point was to exclude just a person creating the content.
… I'm not sure what Tess thinks or meant, that's my interpretation.
Nigel: When we discussed it we did consider these points. In particular, for a content specification,
… content itself is the thing that is a factor of verification.
Florian: I believe you made that point. Thank you for remaking these points, hopefully you've said them
… in a different way and the additional phrasing might bring clarity to some people if they didn't have it before.
Nigel: Did I answer your question Andreas?
Andreas: I'm not sure - my question is if the WG could agree to put the phrase in - do you think the answer is no?
Nigel: I think we said no before but if people want to accept it now then we can reconsider.
Gary: I don't think we can know if the objectors would accept it anyway.
… That ties in to the outcome of the Council: will it be concrete?
Florian: Unless all objections go away then we still need to decide if any objections are upheld.
… Unless you want to try to reach consensus, I think we should go ahead in the Council.
Pierre: My attempts to discuss this and come to consensus have been unsuccessful over the months.
Nigel: I think the Process should give the council greater powers than uphold or reject - they should be
… able to say "This is how it's going to be".
Pierre: For a different group.
Florian: That's been discussed. If we find better ways, suggestions are always welcome for
… improvements to the Process.
… The Council is not the Director, and the Director had many more powers that he could use at any time.
… Including resolving FOs. If we want the Council to be able to do more then we need to give it more powers.
… That's one of the differences compared to the Director.
Defining a Registry #241 and #243
Nigel: As discussed previously, I've drafted a boilerplate Registry definition and
… opened a pull request, w3c/ttwg#243 for review.
<Github> w3c/
Nigel: Thank you Atsushi for your comments.
… Please everyone else take a look and add your comments to the PR.
… Any immediate questions about it?
group: none
IMSC-HRM
Nigel: Do any of the open issues on IMSC-HRM block FPWD?
Pierre: I think we were going to CR not FPWD.
Nigel: Sorry my mistake.
Pierre: We have a CR, and the action item is to craft a test plan, which will depend
… to some extent on the result of the Council, including if they cancel the entire project.
Pierre: The FPWD was published back in November 2021.
Nigel: OK, then any open issues that need to be resolved before CR?
Pierre: There's one that's scheduled for CR1 milestone, which is about references.
… The last on the thread is a suggestion from me to you in December.
Nigel: Yes there's an action on me.
Pierre: None of the other issues are labelled CR.
… We did do a triage which resulted in your asking for the TAG review.
Nigel: Yes, which hasn't concluded yet.
Pierre: I thought there was a suggestion to turn it into a Note.
… I don't think there were technical comments.
Nigel: I don't think they did a technical review.
… The review issue is still open. I don't think they're done.
Pierre: As far as I know the only action item that's blocking is creating a test plan.
<pal> Pierre: (we have a draft test plan available)
AOB - DST
Nigel: Given the time, suggest Chairs propose something offline
Gary: [nods]
Meeting close
Nigel: Thanks everyone, see you next time, hopefully at the correct hour. [adjourns meeting]