Subject: Comment on process

From: Danny Ayers <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2005 23:03:30 +0100

I'm not going to argue the point here any further, but feel something
has to be said.

I am optimistic a compromise on the extensibility/RDF issue can be
reached in the given time frame, but find the imposition of such a
short period a bit extreme. It isn't that there hasn't been
considerable work on RDF-compatibility, that side's potentially
trivial (use RDF/XML!), it's the production of a compromise everyone
is comfortable with.

I doubt anyone reading Tim's recent posts on the subject of
extensibility could come to any conclusion other than that he is
vehemently opposed to any inclusion of anything associated with RDF in
the core specification. I certainly don't mean any personal criticism
on this point, only that, as I have said before, I think it's
important that the project is not only open but seen to be open. I am
sure everything is above board, it's only an unfortunate coincidence,
but setting this cutoff on a point on which one of the chairs has
taken a strong viewpoint doesn't look good. Isn't this the first time
a strict deadline has been imposed for proposals for any set of
features? (Aside of course from the name).

No-one gains anything from overly protracted discussion. But I don't
seen any extraordinary circumstances that might justify the imposition
of cloture. Is there something related to the (still unexplained)
"deadline" mentioned in Tim's recent post?

Cheers,
Danny.

-- 

http://dannyayers.com

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From: "Scott Hollenbeck" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2005 17:26:14 -0500

> No-one gains anything from overly protracted discussion. But 
> I don't seen any extraordinary circumstances that might 
> justify the imposition of cloture. Is there something related 
> to the (still unexplained) "deadline" mentioned in Tim's recent post?

I'm not sure that I understand why you believe the "deadline" is
unexplained.  Take a look at the charter for this working group:

http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/atompub-charter.html

There are goals and milestones identified with due dates.  The working group
chairs have an obligation to keep the working group on track to meet those
milestones.  They can set interim goals for smaller tasks if they feel it's
necessary.

Given that the goals and milestones were agreed upon as part of the creation
of this working group, what's not clear?

-Scott-
(atompub area advisor)

---

From: "Roy T. Fielding" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2005 14:38:13 -0800

> "deadline" mentioned in Tim's recent post?

Tim already said (before yet another round of RDF waffling started)
that the chairs were seeking to produce a final draft.  What he did
was extend his own deadline to give you time to make a concrete,
forward proposal on what needs to be done, either in a PACE (like
everyone else) or in a separate draft.  If you can't do that in four
days then it isn't going in the next draft, which is the only
horizon that chairs have control over.

As far as process goes, Tim (and Paul) have been exceedingly kind.
I would have simply said "Put up or shut up" some six months ago and
further discussion would be out of order until such time as there
is a concrete proposal to be discussed.  IETF WGs move forward
on the basis of rough consensus and running code.

....Roy

---

From: Paul Hoffman / IMC <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2005 14:53:28 -0800

At 11:03 PM +0100 1/8/05, Danny Ayers wrote:
>reached in the given time frame,

Good!

>  but find the imposition of such a
>short period a bit extreme.

The WG has been discussing this for *months*. The fact that the 
chairs have put an end-point on those months does not make the total 
time a "short period".

Given the amount of discussion so far, do you really believe it is 
impossible to put together a concrete proposal either as a Pace or as 
an Internet Draft in a week? If so, that indicates that the problem 
is not describable enough for inclusion in a standard. Tim and I 
believe that there are some people in the WG who don't believe that, 
but we need to see proof.

>the core specification.

Tim has most recently said "The opinion has been forcefully expressed 
that Atom should adopt an extensibility framework based partly or 
wholly, directly or indirectly, on RDF.  This idea is not 
unreasonable on the face of it." I cannot parse that in any way that 
leads to a belief that he is "vehemently opposed" so such inclusion; 
the opposite seems much more true.

What he and I are asking for is to finally finish. We've talked 
enough; give a proposal for how to move forward so the WG can come to 
consensus.

>Isn't this the first time

Not at all. It has happened many times in the past. Each time we 
solicit to close issues, there is a (usually implicit) deadline for 
responding to that call. This is no different, except that we still 
don't have a Pace or Internet Draft to work from.

So, the chairs have two choices in order to come to closure soon on 
the discussion that is of interest to everyone here:

a) Say "there is still no proposal, so closure is reached in the negative"

b) Say "we will soon reach closure in the negative unless someone 
posts a concrete proposal we can find consensus around.

At least to me, (b) seems like the better option, yes?

>No-one gains anything from overly protracted discussion.

Fully agree.

>  But I don't
>of cloture.

Agree. That's why we are asking for a proposal that we can discuss.

>  Is there something related to the (still unexplained)

See Scott's response, with which I fully agree.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--Internet Mail Consortium

---

From: Danny Ayers <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 9 Jan 2005 01:21:43 +0100

> of this working group, what's not clear?

When Tim referred to "Our deadline" in the context of "the result of
discussions between Paul and myself, and is our position" [1] it
wasn't clear which "our" and hence which deadline he was talking
about. This question was asked directly in a subsequent post [2].

So ok, the charter includes the following Goal/Milestone: 

Mar 05	  	Request Last Call for Atom feed format

I will assume this is the deadline in question. Thanks for the clarification.

Cheers,
Danny.

[1] http://www.imc.org/atom-syntax/mail-archive/msg11896.html
[2] http://www.imc.org/atom-syntax/mail-archive/msg11916.html

-- 

http://dannyayers.com

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From: Tim Bray <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 08 Jan 2005 17:36:10 -0800

On Jan 8, 2005, at 2:03 PM, Danny Ayers wrote:

> vehemently opposed

I've decided I just don't know.  Henry says we need to do nearly 
nothing, and a few days back I proposed saying data relevant to entry 
should be a child of entry, and maybe something like that covers it?  
So frankly, I have no idea what RDF-based extensibility actually means 
in terms of what's in the spec and what's in the feeds.  That's why we 
totally, absolutely need draft language for this discussion to become 
meaningful. -Tim

---

From: Danny Ayers <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 9 Jan 2005 13:10:36 +0100

> totally, absolutely need draft language for this discussion to become

Fair enough, thanks.

Right now I don't really know what's best either. Hopefully everything
will become clear in the next few days...

Cheers,
Danny. 

-- 

http://dannyayers.com

---

From: Henry Story <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 9 Jan 2005 18:57:26 +0100

I would like to agree with this. I have not had much of a weekend, and 
I am not sure I will be able to take so much time off work to put into 
this task.  I am being paid to work on an open source blog editor, and 
I am not sure its ok for me to just spend all my time on this list.

Also the proposal I put forward in the "Closure on Extensibility & RDF" 
thread
is itself really a process. I outlined 4 steps to test out my idea. I 
do not know if it will succeed, just that it would be very elegant if 
it did. It would help if some more experienced people than me put their 
head together to help out this process. But my feeling is that they 
won't bother if they feel that the opening was a sham one. Nobody wants 
to waste their time.

So that is why I asked for a little good will. And I don't think that 
there should be any bad will, since what I am proposing should have 
very little impact on what those that don't want to know about RDF 
want.

Henry