Incubation
Chris Wilson
Google, WICG, Immersive Web
What's the point of Incubation?
Allow exploration without lock-in
Allow explorations to fail gracefully
Allow features to move at a natural pace
Allow competing ideas to incubate
Web Platform Incubator Community Group (WICG)
(This is from
Dom's update
at the Quebec AC meeting)
Launched in 2015 to incubate new browser features
Chaired by Marcos Caceres (Mozilla), Yoav Weiss (Google),
Chris Wilson (Google),
and Travis Leithead (Microsoft)
500+ topics discussed, 100+ github repositories started
30+
features or specs brought to standardization, through input from various stakeholders, incl. non-browser vendors
Detailed
assessment review by the Advisory Board
Incubation isn't only in the WICG
We created the WICG to have an easy-to-join place to incubate
Sometimes, there’s a community already ready-made
We have paired groups in Immersive Web - IWWG and IWCG
We also have the same with Web Audio
This still allows features to compete, and to fail
The Process
“There’s a problem space to solve” → (public!)
WICG post →
Work with community, prototype solutions →
"Minimum Viable Design" - get web developers to try it out
Community-building, iteration, graduation, →
WG (horizontal review, iterate, lock down, implementations) →
REC
What should you take away?
Incubation is a great tool to explore without lockin
Incubation can happen in multiple places
As inserted into UA process, it can help prevent proprietary design
We usually shouldn’t start new web platform features with a WG
Thank you!
Questions?
Find me, attend WICG Th/Fri, wicg_@/cwilso@