[whatwg] A New Way Forward for HTML5 (revised)

[Manu Sporny]

Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
> WebKit also has, arguably, a more open development model than either
> Linux or HTML5. There are many reviewers with the authority to approve
> a checkin, even more people with the ability to directly commit to the
> code after review, and even more people who have submitted some
> patches but don't yet have commit privileges. There is no single
> central gatekeeper, either for WebKit as a whole or any particular
> version.

Hmm, didn't know there was no central gatekeeper for WebKit... cool.

> My conclusions:
> 
> * Number of mailing list subscribers doesn't necessarily have a direct
> relationship to either project openness or project impact.
> * For a project with decent levels of both impact and openness, around a
> thousand mailing list subscribers is within expectations.
> * The Linux Kernel mailing list likely has a huge number of subscribers
> due to unique social and historical factors, not just due to the
> development model.

While I don't necessarily agree with your conclusions, I think all of
the above are perfectly reasonable possibilities. I don't have any data
to prove or disprove any of the conclusions you make above, so this is
as far in the conversation as I can go :)

> I would also caution that, by their nature, standards projects are not
> quite the same thing as software projects. While the way HTML5 has been
> run is much more in the spirit of open source than many past Web
> standards, I'm not sure all the lessons can be applied blindly.

I don't think that the lessons should be applied blindly... I think they
should be applied selectively and with great care. We don't want to
destabilize the way HTML5 is currently being developed - but we do want
to improve the process for giving feedback, get more people making
meaningful contributions, make the process of contributing more
harmonious and hopefully accelerate the speed at which features can be
developed. These are all direct or implied goals in the Restructuring
HTML5 proposal[1].

-- manu

[1] http://html5.digitalbazaar.com/a-new-way-forward/

-- 
Manu Sporny (skype: msporny, twitter: manusporny)
President/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
blog: Bitmunk 3.1 Released - Browser-based P2P Commerce
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