Meeting minutes
Pull Requests
plh: Only PR to review is AB-BoD liaison
florian: We're aware that AB is supposed to pick people and send them to the Board and the Board invites them
<plh> github: https://
florian: Process is not in charge of the Board, but can tell AB how to do its job
… so that's what the PR does
… an earlier phrasing of this was more forceful, it is now rephrased
<plh> github: https://
florian: AB picks some people, and expects the Board to invite them
cwilso: I read through this and I'm totally fine with committing this as-is
… I think it's good to get it on deck
… it doesn't say anything about how AB will appoint, and I'm frankly fine with anything from "chairs just pick" to whatever process
… but at some point we'll have to say how those are chosen
florian: My guess is as a first pass, let chairs figure it out
… and if we want to enshrine that, we can do that
… but at this point, chairs figure out process
cwilso: I will say that's what's implied, since the chair's assess the AB's consensus
plh: fine with PR
… one thing I'm a little uncomfortable is the number 2
… isn't it up to the Board to decide how many people they want to accept?
florian: number 2 is coming from a resolution of the Governance TF, which was forwarded to Steering Committee, who approved it
… in other words, the exact same place the Bylaws came from
florian: The number of people AB will send is 2, Board is expected to accept 2 (but could in theory accept 1 or 7 or whatever)
florian: this is not trying to set up an expectation, it's trying to fulfill an expectation that was set up by the Governance TF and SC
plh: Wish I could get +1 from david
florian: He was part of the TF that approved it
plh: Can change later on if needed
… I can draw his attention later
<plh> Proposed: Merge #669
plh: Objections?
RESOLUTION: Merge #669
Issues
Closing Working Groups
github: https://
<plh> Github: https://
florian: mnot noticed that there are some things that can be initiated by Team and some other people, but closing groups can only be proposed by the Team
… either way there's an AC Review, so can't force it through
… but who can initiate that?
florian: I opened a minimalist PR to extend it to Team or AB or TAG
… Nigel noticed that he didn't think it was a good idea
… I think he prefers to funnel through the Team, to avoid e.g. AB wants to close a group while TAG has it open or vice versa
… I think the PR is simple, but whether we want to adopt or not is open question
plh: Right now the Director can propose to close a group
… your proposal doesn't do that in spirit of Director-free, says TAG *or* AB not TAG *and* AB
… Council is both
florian: Council is a lot more complicated than TAG+AB
… if they were doing this on their own, I'd be concerned, but they have to start an AC Review
plh: Team doesn't get a choice, would have to start an AC Review once requested
tzviya: There's some concern that the TAG would take on more work and AB would have less work, and for things like this as well as Charter Review, room for AB and TAG to work together
… we're already working together for Councils
… extraordinarily hard to coordinate, coordination is half the work
… confluence of policy and tech work
… I think it makes sense to work together
… I think we should do something about this, how can we get the best of both groups
florian: personally, even if it's a good idea, it's non-urgent
… in normal circumstances, we can tell the Team and they'll listen and there's no blocking thing here
… so in theory finding a broader way might be better, but we can defer this to next year
… Mark raised it as part of Director-free
… so if we're not doing this now, we need to argue with Mark
fantasai: [...]
fantasai: Could say TAG+AB, would only really be relevant when the Team disagrees
florian: Situation is about forcibly closing a group that otherwise wouldn't stop on its own
tzviya: I can easily see a scenario where this could happen
… let's say a subgroup within W3C who want to specify a technology, but W3C at large wants to disassociate itself from that work
florian: Not saying there isn't a case for that, but that it would be politically interesting
plh: We always have some WGs that we wish we didn't have
… can make case to close several groups as of today
… but not going to
florian: Back to the issue, we can do several things
florian: a) defer
florian: b) switch to AB + TAG, if in agreement
plh: c) ask AB for feedback
plh: If we do that kind of change, we're adding more responsibility
florian: I don't expect this to be routine
… this has been extremely rare or never happened, and I expect that to remain the case
tzviya: I would say defer
florian: Maybe defer and if mnot isn't okay with it, we work on it more?
plh: I would be happy for us to defer, not to merge
plh: objections to defer? If mnot comes back we can come back.
RESOLUTION: Defer 653 for 2023, unless mnot pushes back
Issues to Close
limiting scope of FO Council deliberations
github: https://
plh: pal, you proposed this issue, where do we stand?
pal: unresolved, can discuss here or take it to the AC
florian: The type of changes we'd need to make to make the Council conform to what you're suggesting aren't small tweaks, they are a radical departure for how the Council is currently set up according to the AB resolutions
… if you think that's not correct, and it's just tweaks, then maybe we're not understanding each other
pal: I think it's just a one-sentence change, just limit the Council
… Council shouldn't be inventing new process
florian: It would defeat the purpose of Council
… FOs are almost never about "this rule was violated, shut it down"
pal: examples?
florian: every single recent FO?
pal: I don't understand how a single group can invent new <rules> and bind members to those rules, that makes new sense
florian: I think that would make no sense, but that's not what it's doing
… when we get to a Council, we were trying to have consensus and failed
… default situation is, we're stuck we can do nothing
pal: reject the FO
florian: FO is not about "process is violated", it's a statement that "I cannot agree with this, we have no consensus"
<tzviya> recent Devices and Sensors charter results https://
florian: the reason for my disagreement might be grounded in process, or grounded in privacy violation, or architectural decision or whatever
… if Council cannot discuss anything other than process, then we can't resolve any FOs that are not grounded in Porcess
… or it means that you cannot have an FO in absence of a process violation
… which would be a radical departure to what FOs have been used for historically at W3C
… if we have privacy problems, i18n, arhitecutral, accessibilty, any of these have been justifications for FOs
pal: there's no more Director, so what used to work will not work in the future
tzviya: That's exactly the point
… Dropped a link to a recent FO
… I've been observing this discussion a little remotely, but role of FO Council was created to replace the role of the Director in resolving FOs
… see https://
… why are decisions about process even the discussion here, objections to charters or specs rarely have to do with Process
… there might be notes about process, but the discussion is more about "I don't think this technology is doing X, Y, Z, not good for the world the way ti tis, not truly interoperable, violates X, Y Z"
… far more involved than just process
pal: Technical decisions should be left to WGs
florian: I think the point here is that, that would be a radical change to what a Recommenation is
… a Recommendation is not work of a WG, it's the work of the entire Consortium
pal: Can't have small group override experts in the WG
plh: If there is disagreement within the AC, someone has to look at the disagreement and find a way forward
pal: if only one AC objects, AC should be able to override them
<plh> fantasai: it's just go as the idea that W3C has a consortium would decide by voting and W3C is not that
<plh> ... we work by consensus
<plh> ... every single FO has been handled on its own merits
<plh> ... it's also that if WGs can't come to consensus, they need a way to escalate
<florian> +1 to fantasai
<Zakim> tzviya, you wanted to comment on "small group"
tzviya: Agree with fantasai, and also want to comment on 'small group'
… AB + TAG is 20 people, diverse group from geography, industry, etc.
… elected by AC, it's a pretty good representation of W3C
… Does a pretty good job of reflecting different aspects of W3C and how decision can be made
pal: <to the earlier argument that W3C is about consensus and not voting, I would like to point that> the FO Council does have a voting procedure
… it's much smaller group
florian: Meta-point here, I think unless we convince pierre-anthony that his view was mistaken, which I don't think we are succeeding at, I don't think this is something we can resolve here
… this wasn't a decision of this group, this is a decision of the AB
… I think if you want to have this discussion, you have to have it with the AB, because this is in contradiction to what the AB is trying to do
… we can't overturn what the AB wanted to do
<Zakim> fantasai, you wanted to respond
fantasai: Voting on the Council is a last resort
… supposed to find consensus, and usually does
… also Council may be smaller but it is a more balanced group, and more diverse than a WG
[discussion of deferring issue, closing, etc.]
pal: My concern is moving technical decisions away from the technical experts
pal: I'll raise it during AC Review
…
pal: how does this group communicate with the AB, btw?
florian: Some of the time the AB makes a resolution, this is what we want in the Proces, Process CG figure out the details
… and sometimes Process CG says, this seems to be above our pay grade, let's ask the AB
… and finally before sending to AC for review, we send it to AB for review
… plus there is cross-participation in both groups
pal: if I wanted to file a minority report to the AB, what's the way to do it?
florian: AB has a Member-visible repo, can post it there
florian: Either we close this issue, or we can mark the issue as needing AB feedback
… in either case, you're welcome to talk to AB directly
pal: <it sounds like there is consensus here is> to continue with the scope of FO Council as defined in the draft, just want to document my minority opinion
… trying to find right way to do that
florian: We can close this issue as "commenter not satisfied", which will be seen in Disposition of Comments
pal: that sounds great, I'll add a last comment then with my position
florian: One thing on the record to push back on
… notion that TAG is not technical experts... sounds like a questionable thing to me. They *are* technical experts
… and half of Council is the TAG
plh: So proposal is to close the issue, with minority opinion of Pierre-Anthony
… and as usual happy to open if new information
… objections?
RESOLUTION: Close 628 no change, flag Commenter Not Satisfied
Informal Review
plh: what's the status?
florian: I was tasked with doing changelog, and was busy and am late
… there is a changelog, I'm just unsure it's complete
plh: eta?
florian: [explains schedule]
plh: With Thanksgiving approaching, closer we get to end of November the less attention we get
florian: understood, can't promise this week but can do next week
pal: Another administrative question, I'd like to review minutes before posted
<TallTed> the `s/incorrect/correct/` tool can be used immediately (if we're using the typical tooling)
florian: usually you can correct on the fly, for this group it's bene good enough, but if not you can aks the chairs to make edits
plh: I'll give you 24 hours, send me any additional corrections
… they get generated automatically
Meeting Schedule
plh: two people said Wednesdays are not great, might need to rediscuss the day of the week
… maybe make a poll?
florian: random number generator, different day each time!
fantasai: just send a poll, might as well
plh: if nothing interesting comes out of poll then we'll leave Wednesdays
Proposal for a Directorate
florian: [summarizes issue]
github: https://
florian: I'm not sure Mike is convinced we picked the best path, but convinced we're not going in that direction
plh: Should we flag it as commenter not satisfied?
florian: I think we need to mark differently the cases where the commenter disagrees with closing the issue
fantasai: He's not objecting, so I think we don't need to do anything special
End
[review of action items]
florian: I think we should action some combination of chairs and editors to remember why it is the PRs are different, why each one has some difference that we want to keep
… we have a reason for not accepting wseltzer's PR, but I forget what it is
florian: When I do get to writing the changelog, do we have group clearance to immediately send the informal review request?
fantasai: We agreed that I would draft announcement, send to jeff for review, and then send it out
Meeting closed.