Researcher at CWI in Amsterdam (first non-military internet site in Europe - 1988, whole of Europe connected to USA with 64kb link!)
Co-designed the programming language ABC, that was later used as the basis for Python
Organised 2 workshops at the first Web conference in 1994
Chaired the first style and internationalization workshops at W3C.
Co-author of HTML4, CSS, XHTML, XML Events, XForms, RDFa, etc
Activity lead of W3C HTML and Forms Activities, co-chair of XHTML2 Working Group
Not your normal standards organisation.
More a distributed software architecture design organisation.
Founded 1994, by Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the Web.
Centres in Boston, South of France, Tokyo. Offices in around 18 other regions.
Around 50 FTE all around the world (not including offices).
More than 110 'recommendations' to its name, Royalty free
Around 400 members from more than 40 countries.
Aim: "leading the web to its full potential"
Work is done in working groups
They are chartered for a period to produce some technology
Charter delineates what may and may not be done
Charter period can be extended
Group size: a half dozen to 70 or more. Any member may join. Invited experts are possible.
Sweet spot: 12 to 15 members.
Chair, or two, plus team contact
Usually one year
No W3C resources except web space and teleconference bridges
Idea is to develop an area before becoming a WG
Weekly phone meeting of an hour: time zones are a major challenge.
Three or four Face-to-face meetings (FtF or F2F) per year
More frequently occurring: Virtual Face-to-faces (multi-hour calls, with or without video, and collaboration software).
Almost every exchange has a URI: emails, minutes, documents
Almost everything is in HTML; proprietary document types are seriously frowned upon. No MS Word, little PDF, no Powerpoint.
You may think it is a challenge having a meeting with 70 people over the telephone.
You would be right...
Principle tool: IRC backchannel with supporting software:
Three agents:
Zakim - phone bridge
RRSagent - minuting
Tracker - Action tracking
Presence management
12:57:01 [Zakim] +Roland_Merrick
12:57:17 [Roland] Zakim, Roland_Merrick is Roland
12:57:17 [Zakim] +Roland; got it
13:04:20 [oedipus] zakim, who is here?
13:04:20 [Zakim] On the phone I see Roland,
Gregory_Rosmaita, Markus, Steven
13:04:21 [Zakim] On IRC I see alessio, mgylling, Roland,
Zakim, RRSAgent, Steven, oedipus, trackbot
...
14:02:46 [Zakim] Team_(xhtml)13:00Z has ended
14:02:47 [Zakim] Attendees were Roland, Gregory_Rosmaita,
+46.7.06.02.aaaa, Markus, Steven, Alessio, ShaneM, Tina
Agenda management
15:07:02 <plh> zakim, move to next agendum 15:07:02 <Zakim> agendum 9. "action items" taken up [from plh]
Queue management
13:29:35 <ivan> q+
* Zakim sees Bert, ivan in the queue
13:31:42 <koalie> ack bert
13:31:42 <Zakim> Bert, you wanted to note that
that goes way beyond CSS's interest...
Noise management and muting
zakim, who is noisy? zakim, mute Steven
Many commands are available using touch tones as well.
Minute taking, and correcting
15:04:14 [oedipus] SP: received a lot of feedback at AC meeting on how should be structured 15:04:31 [Steven] s/feedback/input/
Minutes production and editing
15:05:06 [oedipus] rrsagent, make minutes 15:05:06 [RRSAgent] I have made the request to generate http://www.w3.org/2009/03/26-xhtml-minutes.html oedipus
Off-the-record remarks
15:07:31 [Steven] [off] But don't tell anyone :-)
Action tracking/issue management
14:05:59 [oedipus] ACTION: Gregory - draft example of
P with prose list and structural list
14:05:59 [trackbot] Created ACTION-65 - - draft example of
P with prose list and structural list
[on Gregory Rosmaita - due 2009-04-02].
Charter
Requirements - helps make decisions about features later
Working draft *
Last call → Disposition of comments
Candidate recommendation (CR), tests, implementations
Proposed recommendation (PR), vote
Recommendation
(Later: Proposed edited recommendation, leading to Recommendation again)
Some monolithic
Some modular
Even down to a single attribute
Some specs are non-normative, such as documentation, primers, use cases, guidelines, good usage practices
Comments comes from everywhere, not just within W3C
Need a tracking system
Triage of issues: obvious/editorial, research/future, discuss
Deal with easy issues first; try setting timelimits to discussion (eg 5 or 10 minute rule)
Comments that do not include constructive suggestions do not need to be taken as seriously as those that do.
Try to have solutions ready, avoid designing on the fly
Consensus, straw polls and voting
Don't ask "does everyone agree with that?", but "any objections?"
Don't reopen issues if there is no new information.
Objections are possible; dissenters cannot stop a draft, but it helps not to have any
Use food to get to a conclusion; Use beer (out of hours) to oil the wheels of the group
There will always be difficult people.
Avoid ratholing. Search for compromise. The magic phrase to listen for "I can live with that"
Alas no standard method
Each WG chooses its own method
XML Spec, XHTML
Automatisation or handwork
W3C does have a 'publication format requirements checker'.
Likewise, no standard facilities
Various software to help, such as Bugzilla, Jitterbug
Some groups do it by handwork (e.g. text file).
Note that the testing is of the spec, not of the software
No standard methodology
Test generation
Some mechanised approaches
Coordination groups, such as Hypertext Coordination Group, XML Coordination Group
Yearly Technical plenary week, tries to bring as many groups as possible together at one location.
Some coordination going on in the background, such as Backplane Incubator
Some specs develop into more generally applicable technologies, eg XML Events, RDFa
Accessibility
Internationalisation
(Usability, device independence)