[whatwg] some issues

[Ian Hickson]

On Sat, 10 Jul 2004, Matthew Raymond wrote:
> >
> > Because the whole point of this is it's being done in the open, if
> > it's not an open process, don't pretend that it is, and don't pretend
> > that just keeping a latest draft available is open, it's not!
>
>     My point is that when whether or no something is "open" depends on
> what dictionary definition you use, perhaps you should be making a
> practical argument for openness rather than a literal one.

Hear hear.

I'm using "open" in the senses of:
 * Accessible to all; unrestricted as to participants: an open
   competition.
 * Free from limitations, boundaries, or restrictions: open registration.
 * Free of prejudice; receptive to new ideas and arguments: She listened
   to the proposal with an open mind.

I'm not using it in the sense of "transparent process", wherein all
decisions are logged and every change to the spec is recorded with
detailed reasoning. WHATWG has never claimed to do this, and there is no
chance of us doing it, because it is an insane amount of work and doesn't
gain us anything. As has been pointed out, if you want to know why a
change was made, you can just ask, so the information is available just
the same, it just doesn't have to be written except on an on-demand basis.
>From a computer science point of view, it's equivalent.

Analogy: If WHATWG is an office, and I'm working on the spec in this
office, then the office door is open: people can walk in at any time and
ask whatever they like and I will answer. I'm not keeping a detailed log
of what I'm doing, but that doesn't mean the door is closed.


> > If the WHAT-WG come out say - "not everything's public, it's not an
> > open process, but we'll keep the latest draft public" then fine.
> > They've not said that yet though.

Sure we have. In fact we've never said anything _but_ this. You are just
reading more into what has been said than was actually written.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'