Web and Mobile Interest Group Teleconference

Welcome

schuki: welcome to the 1st WebMob call in 2014
... We'll be discussing our work in the upcoming couple of months

<schuki> http://www.w3.org/wiki/Mobile/Work

schuki: I'll be adding new stuff to our wiki work page
... work has started on some of the topics, so I'll add information to help guide newcomers
... today we'll talk about network info, permissions, offline, payments, and best practices
... I'll highlight them on the page

<schuki> https://github.com/w3c-webmob/netinfo

Network Information

Schuki: at the end of 2013, marcos started this github repo for the netinfo api
... to capture how native apps use network info to give users choice
... the document includes lots of screenshots of existing native and Web apps illustrating choices on when to download/upload or stream
... there is a lot of misunderstanding about the need for a netinfo api
... this requirements work is to help for the development of a useful API in the WG
... There are some people in Mozilla that have started to draft a few different notes on net info
... this is helping to enrich the existing work in this space
... already some good consequences out of this work
... Please take a read of the document
... if you see missing or incorrect information, submit issues on the github repo
... even open questions are acceptable as issues there

Bin_Hu: there has been discussions of the privacy impact of that API
... raised by Nick Doty
... with Brian making suggestions how to solve this, e.g. via JavaScript libraries

Schuki: the best way forward would be to summarize these points to the mailing list

Bin_Hu: I'll summarize this to the list

Permissions

Schuki: two weeks ago, the W3C TAG was meeting in London
... Dom was invited to discuss the issue around permissions
... which links back to our discussions during TPAC on the topic

<scribe> scribenick: schuki

dom: I presented to the TAG 2 weeks ago

<dom> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-web-mobile/2014Jan/0001.html

dom: I sent a summary to the mailing list
... I updated and improved the TPAC presentation on the current state of permissions in browsers

<dom> http://dontcallmedom.github.io/web-permissions-req/matrix.html

dom: the presentation showed some bad user experience with regards to browser permissions
... I also showed some tests and test results
... the table shows a lot of variation in permissions across browsers
... this is bad for users and developers
... the TAG agreed that this was a topic to be paid attention to
... they set some tasks
... Alex Russell has a task to consider this, and Dan Appelquist has a task to communicate with WGs to get them to ask the TAG when working with permissions
... everyone agreed that we need to consider this topic more
... we talked about what a better model will be

<dom> API Permissions

dom: as part of my research I did a search for documents ( see link above)
... seems like a lot of research is ongoing in this area
... I am looking for more poeple to join me on this work
... in Sys Apps there was some talk on web apps in the market
... there are a large number of questions in permission management
... so there is some work going on in this topic
... I don't have a detailed work plan atm
... but if people are interested in helping out that would be great!
... the important question is how we move from this model which has so many issues to a better one

Bin_Hu: we did some work here in WAC, these methods need to be simplified and updated, but this could help
... we may be able to contribute here

dom: i think the way to get to a solution would be to dive down into this problem and ask the questions of what needs to be done first

<dom> https://github.com/dontcallmedom/web-permissions-req/

<dom> ScribeNick: dom

schuki: dom has posted the github link of the work done so far
... as dom has pointed out, a good next step would be to understand the questions we need to answer for a permission model
... at the bottom of the github page, there is a todo section with ideas on how to help on this
... e.g. screenshots on mobile, # of tested features
... the next stage after that is identifying questions a permission model need to answer
... Dom, let's work together on making this easy to access for others
... All, please raise issues on the github repo as you see fit

Best Practices

GitHub Best Practices repo

Schuki: I've started reading the MWBP document
... when I told twitter about this, I got a lot of reaction
... some people pointed out it was outdated
... I also noted that a lot of it was still very much relevant 8 years later
... I moved the document to github with help from jo and tobie and others
... we raised a number of issues
... got a few pull requests

<schuki> https://github.com/w3c-webmob/mobile_best_practices/issues

Schuki: we have both simple issues and hard problems
... some of them got quite a few comments, e.g. "don't call it 'mobile'"
... add issues as you see fit, or even make pull requests with amendments
... I've a few additional points I will raise on the repo

jo: my feeling is that if it's worth updating that document, it should integrate the mobile web apps best practices
... hence, we're talking about updating and combining two documents

schuki: that document also came up on my list
... let's add an issue on this

+1 to jo

<schuki> http://www.w3.org/TR/2010/REC-mwabp-20101214/

Bin_Hu: we intend to review and read the document
... we noticed that others orgs have worked on related topics, e.g. the smart apps guidelines from gsma
... any goal of alignment or reference to related guidelines in the industry?

schuki: we should definitely have a look into that, we shouldn't duplicate work
... marcos made the point that there is so much content on the topic, but it's hard to find a place putting it altogether

<jo> the content of the blog posts that schuki refers to is of variable quality and advisability

<schuki> +1

<jo> +1 to Dom's suggestion to think about what form any initiative of this kind should take

schuki: the idea of putting this on WPD is interesting
... we could start by developing in the repo and then move it to WPD

<jo> before thinking about whether to do this and why it would be a good idea to decide about ow to do it

dom: we should try to understand better the audience and expected outcome of this document
... since this will impact significantly the way the document is built

schuki: I'll add a note to that effect in the repo
... clearly we need to think about it early

<schuki> https://github.com/w3c-webmob/mobile_best_practices/issues/16

<Zakim> jo, you wanted to suggest that before doing anything at all it might be an idea to see if anyone is going to edit it

jo: the group needs to decide if it thinks an update is worthwhile and what for given its available resources
... if we feel it is worthwhile, then we should identify someone to act as an editor for the document

schuki: that aspect probably needs to be managed separately of the github repo, will look into it
... I'll ask the group how they feel about this

<schuki> thanks jo!

Offline

schuki: got some updates on this
... lots of the work I was planning for us to has been done elsewhere already, so it doesn't sound like we should spend our time on this
... there is a meeting this week in SF on a spec for serviceworker
... there are some emerging implementations
... we should work on developing tests to ensure the technology fulfils its target use cases
... marcos is suggesting we should take these use cases and start to do the ground work of testing service worker
... I'll try to get the use cases sent the list and create a repo
... this will be code oriented
... we'll provide update as we go, giving feedback

dom: from what I understand there are some early implementations that marcos pointed us to

schuki: there were, but they disappeared!
... marcos is on the case to get them back on-line
... you could otherwise compile firefox with the right options
... I'll check back with marcos
... people in mozilla have already started implementing and testing it

payments

<schuki> http://www.w3.org/2013/10/payments/topics.html

Schuki: reminder of the upcoming payments workshop (March 24-25)
... before the break, we talked about developing use cases for the CG and the workshop
... I'm on the program committee for the workshop
... there will be a number of highly visible organizations at the workshop
... banks, operators, on-line payment providers
... if we want to make sure this matches our mobile need, we should bring our use cases
... I'll create a repo for this to make it easy to contribute
... we can then discuss and review them

<schuki> http://www.w3.org/wiki/Mobile/Work

AOB

schuki: there are a number of other task forces we discussed setting up
... with our current broad focus, we probably already have more than enough on our plate
... but if anyone wants to manage a new task force, feel free to offer your services on the list :)
... but otherwise, we'll focus on these existing topics

Bin_Hu: in the past, the CoreMob CG worked on a mobile profile
... is there any plan to continue to work on that profile?
... or is it something that the existing task forces will cover?

<schuki> http://www.w3.org/wiki/Mobile/Work

schuki: sort of yes and sort of not
... our first task force in the list is the documentation task force on which I hope to start working soon
... in TPAC, we discussed how to move our existing documentation into a more dynamic dashboard
... we'll carry on working on that
... On a profile per se, we don't have a current task force directly on this
... but this could be suggested as a new work item
... I'll bring that to the list
... thank you for joining the call; I'll follow up on the list, and anyone should feel to ask any question they may have
... and contribute on github