User-agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 0.5 (Windows/20040207)
(Directly to the W3C, thanks for the invitation and praise)
Robert Sayre wrote:
I work full-time in a job relatively unrelated to Atom, as do many other
members of the Atom community who have contributed far more than myself.
I'm in the same situation as Robert. I participate in an individual
capacity, and don't represent or speak for the company that employs me
(nor would I willingly chose to).
I understand, and appreciate, Eric's reassurance that he wants the same
community working on Atom to keep working on Atom within the W3C. The
Atom community allows / encourages an ad-hoc approach to development of
working code, so I can develop code when the time allows without
hindering or delaying the progress of Atom. I'd like the ability to
continue in that capacity.
The official capacity of Members and Invited Experts seems to lay on a
good deal of responsibility and effort - hopefully there is scope to
continue the open Atom process we have so far - at a discussion and
rough consensus level. Personally, I don't need a (final) voting right,
just the space available to discuss, diagnose and be heard.
I remember when Tim Bray joined Sun, he left the W3 TAG group because
Normal Walsh was already working as a Sun employee on it. I'm concious
if that guideline is imposed on Atom, we'd be losing some very important
contributors and key members. Ideally, if the W3C is the chosen
approach, I'd like to see the people in the Atom community work within
the W3C in the same capacity as they have before today. I could be
completely wrong here - hopefully this is a non-issue: The last thing I
want to see, for example, is a choice between Sam Ruby's and Mark
Pilgrim's participation because they both happen to work for IBM. Atom
has been driven so far by developer and user requirements, not corporate
agendas.