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Charter of the XML Coordination Group

April 2002

C. M. Sperberg-McQueen, W3C, co-chair
Dave Hollander, Contivo, co-chair
Liam Quin, staff contact, for Tim Berners-Lee, Director
$Revision: 3.4 $ of $Date: 2002/08/21 16:33:54 $ by $Author: liam $

The XML Coordination Group provides a forum for coordination between the Working Groups of the XML Activity, and between the XML Activity and other parts of W3C, and between the XML Activity and other organizations.

The Coordination Group itself has no deliverables; those are produced by working groups. But the CG does maintain overviews and otherwise communicate the results of the Working Groups, and in conjunction with the XML Plenary Interest Group it has responsibility for providing overall technical guidance for the development of XML and related specifications.

Scope and Functions

The XML Coordination Group is responsible for:

• coordinating workflow between XML Activity working groups
• watching out for dependencies between WGs
• recommending the creation and dissolution of WGs within its chartered scope (rare but essential)
• setting the master WG/IG/CG meeting schedule
• maintaining the public roadmap (http://www.w3.org/XML/)
• notifying the XML Plenary IG of changes they should be aware of
• maintaining liaison inside and outside the W3C — in particular, gathering and forwarding requests for additional requirements to the appropriate WG(s)
• forwarding requests for process changes originating in the IG upward into the larger W3C
• suggesting/proposing items relating to policy and architecture to the XML Plenary IG for its consideration
• suggesting/proposing items relating to architecture to the TAG for its consideration
• discussing technical questions as needed
• managing crises
  • turning hard policy/architecture questions over to the IG
  • dealing with upper W3C echelons when necessary
  • dealing with aggrieved member organizations when necessary
• coordination of press and media relations and speaking appearances for the Working Groups in the Activity

Duration

The expected duration is through September 2003.

Membership

The XML CG membership consists of

• the CG chair and W3C Team contacts
• the Chairs of the XML Activity Working Groups; at the time of writing, these were:
  • XML Core WG
  • XML Linking WG
  • XML Schema WG
  • XML Query WG
• liaisons, as decided by the CG; at the time of writing, these were:
  • XSL WG
  • DOM WG
  • CSS WG
  • Web Services Coordination Group
  • Semantic Web Coordination Group

Other members may be added, as decided by the CG and the prospective member, based on the need for close liaison with other WGs in the XML Coordination Group.

The initial chairs of the XML Coordination Group are C. M. Sperberg-McQueen, W3C, and Dave Hollander, Contivo. Later chairs, if any, will be named by the Director.

The term chair in this document refers to either co-chair.

The initial staff contact for the XML Coordination Group is Liam Quin.

Meeting Schedule and Record

The XML CG meets by phone every week, and face-to-face whenever there are plenary meetings of the XML Activity (expected frequency: at most twice a year).

The home page of the CG, maintained by the chair and staff contact, provides convenient access to

• membership of the CG
• schedule of future events on behalf of the member Working Groups: deliverables, face-to-face meetings, and other related events
• history of the CG and the XML Activity: creation, meeting records, etc.

Meeting records include members present, the results of group decisions, and significant action items.

Confidentiality

The proceedings of this group are member-confidential, subject to exceptions made by the chair.

W3C, and all W3C Groups, are accountable to the Web community as a whole for the quality of W3C technical work. In support of this public accountability, on the occasions (expected to be rare) that this group finds itself responsible for making decisions with an impact on the technical content of W3C specifications, it will make public a summary of the question, the decision made, and the rationale for the decision.

Procedures

The XML Coordination Group follows the W3C process as outlined in the World Wide Web Consortium Process Document. Where applicable, the XML Coordination Group follows the common procedures outlined in Common Procedures for XML Working Groups (substituting "CG" for "WG" as needed).