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Last updated October 6th 2016 This IG has been rejected by the second AC review ending 21st of September 2016. Background (all links except for the first charter are member-only): A
first version was under AC review in May 2016 This version has been updated based
on comments on w3c-ac-forum
and on the WBS,
plus numerous edits in subsequent dialogs with commenters and
was under review in September. |
The goal of the Technology
and Policy Interest Group (TechPolig) is to discuss and clarify
technical aspects of Internet and Web related policy issues that may
affect the mission
of W3C : Lead the Web to its full potential by developing protocols
and guidelines that ensure the long-term growth of the Web.
It is designed primarily as a forum for W3C Members to analyse
technical considerations, that the W3C sees as relevant, related to policies
and governance decisions, and it tries to reach consensus on
descriptions of varying views of those considerations.
TechPolig is intended to pull together facts and objective analysis to
inform discussion of policy issues, and is not intended to build W3C
positions on policy issues.
The TechPolig's analyses, in the form of W3C Member-private IG Notes, or
other documents, can be used in a number of ways. The
analysis findings may be useful to the membership or Team as they consider policy
questions, or they might get public visibility by going through AC
review and Director approval to make them public.
| Start date | The start date is the date of the "Call for Participation", when the charter is approved. |
|---|---|
| End date | Start date + 1 year |
| Chair | Jean-François Abramatic (jfa@w3.org) |
| Team Contact |
Daniel Dardailler (danield@w3.org) - (FTE %: 5) |
| Meeting Schedule | Teleconferences: 1-hour
call, as needed (expected twice a month) Face-to-face: we will try to meet during the W3C's annual Technical Plenary week; additional face-to-face meetings may be scheduled by consent of the participants, no more than 3 per year. |
The TechPolig will explore, discuss and surface the technical issues
and ramifications of relevant Internet and Web technical policy
questions, and document the technical considerations relevant to those
issues.
W3C staff, by design of our process, with Team in charge of Liaisons, has always assumed a broad mandate to comment publicly on topics which appear to be principally technical in nature, and will continue to do so in the future.
There is no clear dividing line between "technical" and "policy"
issues, but a fairly significant grey area. W3C has long had technical
activities that inform external policy discussions. This group will
discuss the possible technical considerations related to policy
directions, the policy implications of technical decisions, and the
relevant values the W3C community holds.
Because of the diversity of the W3C Membership, the group seeks
agreement on the proper description of the variety of views and
information the group has gathered, and not coming up with a common
view or position on a topic (as it is the case for technical
specifications). This diversity is reflected in regional and cultural
differences, differences in policy and regulatory issues, between
actors from different positions in the Web and Internet eco-system and
with different business models.
The TechPolig will maintain a neutral position on the policy positions themselves and only be concerned about clarifying technical implications of the policy positions.
The TechPolig is concerned primarily with the Web, but since the Web relies on other layers of technologies (e.g. IP, DNS, Crypto, platform usage above it, etc), the discussions need not be constrained to only Web technologies.
Successes will be evaluated against the following goals:
The discussion of internal W3C policies is out of scope, as the responsibility for them is already well established. (W3C policies may nonetheless be used or referenced.)
Policy issues that are generic or have no technical aspects, or are irrelevant to the Internet and the Web; or on the contrary, primarily technically oriented, and already in scope of existing W3C WGs. Those will be out of scope for the IG, though the IG may advise on the latter if asked.
The TechPolig will explore issues at the intersection of technology and policy making. The
group will produce W3C Member-private Notes
that explore technical considerations relevant to these issues.
The IG may also request
that some of these Notes be published as public
Interest Group Notes. Approval of the request to publish a
public
version will be through AC Review and Director's
assessment of
consensus (following the usual W3C
Process steps)., and does not imply any endorsement of the
content.
TechPolig does not formally represent the W3C Membership and its deliverables will include such a disclaimer in their Status section.
The TechPolig will:
The TechPolig will inform the Advisory Committee on its activities on a regular basis.
For its initial chartering period of one year, the TechPolig will look at the technical aspects related to this initial list of topics, selected by the Team after feedback from the AB and the AC:
The TechPolig will maintain a Member-visible page with details for those topics listing candidate items that may be considered in the future.
The group will ask for an AC Review if it adds topics beyond these two.
The TechPolig doesn't have, or claim to have, any exclusivity on policy discussions within W3C, and as a matter of fact, these discussions are already happening in various W3C groups, but since the TechPolig aims at providing a gathering place to discuss policy issues, it may have interactions with several other groups.
These existing groups/areas are of particular interest for TechPolig, and will be put in the loop for their expertise and review: the W3C Liaisons team, the W3C Advisory Board, the TAG (Technical Architecture Group, since architecture is politics), Privacy/Security (e.g. Privacy IG, PING), WAI (Web Accessibility Initiative, relevant to many policy discussions), eGov/OpenData (related to gov PSI policy), Internationalization.
Although this is and will stay the primary role of the Liaisons staff, the TechPolig may also suggest how the W3C might best coordinate with external fora and organizations where Internet and Web policy topics are being discussed, such as IGF, ISOC, NMI, GIPO, ICANN, or peer SDOs like IETF, IEEE, ISO, OASIS, etc.
Participation in the TechPolig during its first year of activity (initial chartering period) is reserved to W3C Members.
The group will not normally include Invited Experts, but the chair(s) may invite people for a particular call, meeting or discussions.
Once reviewed by the AC, the TechPolig deliverables that become public will include a way to collect public feedback.
The meetings held by the TechPolig will be consistent with the W3C Process requirements for meetings.
This group primarily conducts its work on the Member-only mailing list
It is expected that face-to-face meetings will take place on the order of once or twice each year, or as necessary, at the discretion of the chair(s).
Conference calls will be used as needed, at the discretion of the chair(s).
The Interest Group communicates in English.
Information about the group (deliverables, participants, face-to-face meetings, teleconferences, etc.) is available from the Technology and Policy Interest Group home page. A public home page is also available. (BOTH PAGES NOT CREATED YET)
The TechPolig consensus is concerned with agreeing on a good description of the various technical implications of policies, and not with coming up with a W3C position on any given policy.
This group will seek to make decisions through consensus and due process, per the W3C Process Document (section 3.3). Typically, an editor or other participant makes an initial proposal, which is then refined in discussion with members of the group and other reviewers, and consensus emerges with little formal voting being required.
However, if a decision is necessary for timely progress, but consensus is not achieved after careful consideration of the range of views presented, the Chairs may call for a group vote, and record a decision along with any objections.
To afford asynchronous decisions and organizational deliberation, any resolution (including publication decisions) taken in a face-to-face meeting or teleconference will be considered provisional. A call for consensus (CfC) will be issued for all resolutions (for example, via email and/or web-based survey), with a response period from one week to 10 working days, depending on the chair's evaluation of the group consensus on the issue. If no objections are raised on the mailing list by the end of the response period, the resolution will be considered to have consensus as a resolution of the Interest Group.
All decisions made by the group should be considered resolved unless and until new information becomes available, or unless reopened at the discretion of the Chairs or the Director.
This charter is written in accordance with the W3C Process Document (Section 3.4, Votes), and includes no voting procedures beyond what the Process Document requires.
The Technology and Policy Interest Group provides an opportunity to share perspectives on the topic addressed by this charter. W3C reminds Interest Group participants of their obligation to comply with patent disclosure obligations as set out in Section 6 of the W3C Patent Policy. While the Interest Group does not produce Recommendation-track documents, when Interest Group participants review Recommendation-track specifications from Working Groups, the patent disclosure obligations do apply. For more information about disclosure obligations for this group, please see the W3C Patent Policy Implementation.
This Interest Group will use the W3C Software and Document license for all its deliverables.
This charter for the Technology and Policy Interest Group has been created according to section 5.2 of the Process Document. In the event of a conflict between this document or the provisions of any charter and the W3C Process, the W3C Process shall take precedence..
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$Date: 2016/10/07 14:29:34 $