RE: [agenda] 16 June "new standards" task force

I'm not quite sure where to put this in the wiki, and I have to drop off the call at 12:30 Eastern for some dental work (sorry, got the time zone wrong!), but here is my strawman proposal for how W3C could address the problem this TF is focused on:

W3C host something like a specialized version of "Google/Yahoo/Live Groups with an IPR policy" to  support the larger community of those who are thinking about and prototyping formats, protocols, APIs, tests, etc. to improve the Web experience.  There would be no mandate that the work not compete with other W3C efforts, and participants would be offered a menu of IPR policy alternatives under which they could operate rather than being forced to adopt to a single predefined IPR policy.  One would almost certainly be the Open Web Foundation agreement. Likewise there would be no mandate that the completed work advance to standardization via the W3C; presumably the W3C brand and community would tend to steer the most useful results toward Recommendation track.  W3C staff (or volunteers) would offer *minimal* moderation to make sure that the group is doing work that is plausibly useful to the Web, and not a home for malware/phishers/etc.

This would be an experiment; start simply, learn quickly, and evolve. Ideally it would be hosted on the W3C infrastructure, re-using the existing mailing list / spam filtering / identity mechanism.  If that can't happen quickly, seek external funds (I can't promise, but I would ask) to have a W3C-branded effort on a commercial hosting service during the prototype / rapid evolution phase.

The overall business proposition here is to offer "free parking" to a much larger community than is now in W3C to expose our "brand" and "value proposition" to a circle outside the old guard or whatever Hixie called us :-).  While there is some risk that people will camp out in the parking lot and inconvenience the paying customers, the bet is that we will make it an easy, almost default choice for *successful* brainstorming efforts to move to an XG or WG for further elaboration or standardization, hopefully attracting more paying members and generally building credibility for W3C as "the" place for web specs.

-----Original Message-----
From: public-vision-newstd-request@w3.org [mailto:public-vision-newstd-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Ian Jacobs
Sent: Tuesday, June 15, 2010 3:26 PM
To: public-vision-newstd@w3.org
Subject: [agenda] 16 June "new standards" task force

Hi all,

We are meeting tomorrow:

    When:  Wednesday, 16 June at 12:00pm ET.
    Where: +1.617.761.6200, +33.4.89.06.34.99, or +44.117.370.6152 (more info [1]) Code 63978 (NEWST)
                irc.w3.org:6665 #newstd

Agenda:

  * Draft survey for gathering data about making W3C the place for new standards
    http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-vision-newstd/2010Jun/0017.html

  * Documenting use cases (I may have a URI by tomorrow's meeting for an initial set of use cases)

  * Beginnings of a list of customers (specs, groups, topics)
    http://www.w3.org/2010/04/w3c-vision-public/wiki/Newstd#Outreach

I think we should spend a week or to more fleshing out the problems we want to address and for which audiences, before we start brainstorming about proposals. I would like your thoughts on how to assign action items so that people can go off and gather data or write down use cases for review in a week's time.

  _ Ian

--
Ian Jacobs (ij@w3.org)    http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs/
Tel:                                      +1 718 260 9447

Received on Wednesday, 16 June 2010 15:57:27 UTC