Re: W3C response to proposed Atom Publishing Format and Protocol (atompub) working group

[Mark Nottingham <mnot@xxxxxxxx>]

Hi Eric,

Some thoughts below.


> > - Open participation and consensus
> >
> >   An Atom Working Group in the W3C could charter itself to operate in 
> > the public, and invite participants who are not from W3C Member 
> > organizations at the chair's prerogative. We recognize that much of 
> > the work done on Atom has been by non-Members, and want to assure 
> > those participants that they may take part fully in a W3C Atom 
> > Working Group.
> >
> >  Generally, each participant identified as an individual entity or 
> > company has a single vote. Decisions are made by consensus and will 
> > give the possibility to respect the process that the Atom group has 
> > been able to achieve. Participation in this regard is open to both 
> > W3C Members and Invited Experts from the community.

This gives a large amount of power to the chosen chair; there may be 
people who feel excluded.

Even if that can be avoided, the make-up of the Atom community leads me 
to believe that there will be more Invited Experts than representatives 
of W3C Members on the WG. Would this be acceptable, from an AC 
standpoint? In particular, it would be damaging to all concerned if we 
stalled this effort, only to find out that the AC was not amenable to 
having what amounts to a non-Member WG formed. Even worse, serious 
problems could result if the WG came to consensus, but the AC was not 
happy with that result. Would the Director be willing to prioritise the 
WG over the AC's advice in such a situation?

Regarding consensus: although I believe they are very helpful in most 
cases, the W3C's more strict requirements for consensus may turn out to 
be a disadvantage in the case of Atom. Because syndication has been a 
contentious topic for some time, and because there are several 
potential avenues for its development, rough consensus and running code 
is -- on the face of it -- a more reasonable approach. Can you explain 
more fully how the consensus process at the W3C would result in a 
better result, in this particular instance?

Finally, one of the reasons that the IETF seemed like the appropriate 
choice was the fact that it's widely regarded as neutral. Some, both 
inside and outside of the Atom community, perceive the W3C has having a 
vested interest in the introduction of RDF and/or a relationship to RSS 
1.0 (of which you were an author). Whether or not this is true, this 
perception may make place a cloud over the formation and product of the 
WG. What steps would you take to dispel this?


> > - W3C Patent Policy: Royalty Free licensing
> >
> >   The process around working groups participation helps ensure 
> > accountability and encourage Royalty Free licensing of the 
> > technology. RF licensing in particular is an issue we've heard is 
> > important to the syndication community. More information about this 
> > policy is available at:
> >
> >   http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Patent-Policy-20040205/

As you know, the W3C Patent Policy only provides for RF licensing by 
Working Group Members. Such an end can be achieved in the IETF as well, 
if the WG adopts a policy of only accepting unencumbered contributions. 
It is true that doing this work in the W3C will compel 
non-participating Members to disclose any claims they may have, but I'm 
not convinced that this would be a sizeable benefit. Am I missing 
something? This is IP, so I'm sure I am, but I don't believe there's 
any inherent weakness in the IETF process WRT IPR.


> > - I18n, Accessibility, Device Independence Support and Coordination
> >
> >   The Atom group will benefit from the expertise of these groups 
> > which in turn will help ensure wide deployment regardless of device, 
> > language, or ability. Further we expect the resolution of any 
> > coordination issues arising from these groups will be resolved more 
> > quickly at the W3C.
> >
> > - XHTML Cooperation
> >
> >   It is important to understand the relationship between the Atom API 
> > and the Atom document format. Specifically, we are concerned to 
> > understand how these might evolve (independently or in-step) and 
> > whether the API can be used with RDF formats such as RSS1, or W3C 
> > hypertext formats (e.g. XHTML, or mixed-namespace content). Recent 
> > W3C work (pre-draft at http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/2004/02/xhtml-rdf) on 
> > XHTML2 and RDF is combining RDF's metadata approach with XHTML 
> > document syntax, allowing paragraphs of text to be tagged with 
> > information about their topic, source, author etc. We suspect further 
> > discussions (perhaps a Workshop) are needed to fully understand how 
> > the evolution of XHTML-based approaches relate to Atom and 
> > blog-oriented systems. Since XHTML with embedded metadata can be used 
> > to directly encode syndicated content, we believe the 
> > interdependencies between the Atom API and Atom document format 
> > deserve some attention, both in chartering the work (whether at W3C 
> > or IETF) and as the work proceeds.
> >
> > We believe the cooperation benefits to be great, and the coordination 
> > cost will be addressed more quickly if this work happens at W3C.
> >
> > - XML and RDF experience
> >
> >   W3C has years of expertise in definition of content format language 
> > and model description. XML serialization and RDF model are areas of 
> > expertise at the W3C. Though when it comes to a content model, the 
> > organization is pretty agnostic (CSS, XML, RDF for example are 
> > different models). The Atom group is the one defining its content 
> > model and syntax.
> >
> >   Conversely, Atom would benefit from direct liaisons with these and 
> > other W3C Working Groups to resolve potential conflicts and influence 
> > future specifications.

I can't speak for the Atom community, but I've heard a number of 
reservations about the complexity inherent in the XHTML specifications 
as well as Semantic Web.  While I personally believe that these 
technologies have a lot to offer Atom, the community hasn't achieved 
consensus about adopting them, and I don't believe that the choice 
should be made for them by fiat. Would a W3C charter include mandated 
relationships with these groups, or particular requirements for their 
deliverables?

Also, I note that the IETF and W3C have had several successful 
interactions in the past. What, in particular, is the disadvantage of 
pursuing these liaison relationships from the IETF, rather than within 
the W3C? Superficially, it seems that the only reason they'd need to be 
deep enough to require close co-ordination by the Team is if there were 
requirements placed upon the WG by them.


> > -  QA support
> >
> > We have noticed that the Atom community already has a lot of early 
> > implementation and that you have started a testing effort which is 
> > already impressive. In the context of W3C, this will accelerate the 
> > advancement of the Atom spec along the W3C Recommendation track. It's 
> > great to see that a technology is already so mature with a well-built 
> > quality process.

Would this take the form of W3C Team members contributing to test cases 
and/or running code? How much of a Team Member's time would be devoted 
to such a WG? Having professional staff would a substantial advantage.


> > While we recognize the IETF submission, we'd like to hear from others 
> > within the Atom community regarding the above points, and more 
> > specifically, their requirements and objectives regarding taking this 
> > to a standards organization. We'd support proposing a W3C Working 
> > Group in this area, provided there is support from the larger Atom 
> > community regarding the points mentioned above and that agreement 
> > about work areas can be reached with the IETF.

Another concern that I have is the W3C policy of doing substantial 
technical work in face-to-face meetings. While I agree that this is 
very productive, it may be too much of a burden for so many Invited 
Experts, especially considering the W3C's requirement that such 
meetings be distributed across the globe. I, for example, would likely 
be participating as an Invited Expert, and would not be able to travel, 
except when my work plans happen to coincide. The IETF's policy of 
doing substantial technical work on the mailing list, and not requiring 
participation in plenary sessions, seems like a better fit.

Because of the issues mentioned above, my perception at this time is 
that it's more natural to have an IETF WG with liaisons to the 
appropriate W3C WGs. Would this be workable for the W3C?


--
Mark Nottingham     http://www.mnot.net/