Re: [hybi] Process, was: Technical feedback. was: Process!

[Maciej Stachowiak <[e-mail]>]

On Jan 30, 2010, at 3:07 PM, Greg Wilkins wrote:

> Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
> 
>> What I'm really interested in here is the problems themselves, not what form the damage
>> will take. You did list some.
>> That's great. It would be good to list any others, and to
>> work on solutions to the ones identified.
> 
> Which brings us back to process.
> 
> It's really great that you've taken an interested in the issues that are being raised on
> this list and have engaged in discussion about them.
> 
> But we've been here before.  They've all been raised and discussed in some detail here
> and many ideas and solutions have been proposed.
> 
> All have been rejected.   Not only that, the problems themselves have been rejected
> and no solution at all has been offered.

I think you have raised some valid issues, and I personally think they should be addressed (if not in 1.0 of the protocol, at least understand how a later protocol revision could handle it).  However, I must admit that some of your comments sound like handwaving that assumes the solution without clearly stating the problem. For example, when you talk about the problem of figuring out your idle timeout, it seems like the problem statement is very clear. Whenever you talk about the desire to have arbitrary metadata, I haven't seen you clearly relate that back to a specific use case or concrete problem to be solved. I can see why feedback of that second sort might not get much of a hearing. I think if you focus on concrete problems you have run into as an implementor, you will have much better luck.

> 
> Hence my strong words against the WHATWG process.  It has disenfranchised a
> significant part of the internet community and is not addressing the concerns
> that are being raised.

Now you have the opportunity to discuss these things under the IETF process. Go for it.

> 
> Note that I'm not advocated we use the IETF process because I'm deluded that I
> can get my own way.   If I had my own way, the IETF would be considering something
> like BWTP rather than websocket... but that was hummed down and I accept that.
> So I now wish to positively engage with websocket (hence Jetty now supports it,
> cometd will soon support it and I've put BWTP aside).    However, accepted the
> will of the community is an entirely different thing to accepting the will
> of the WHATWG editor.
> 
> I repeat my suggestion that the WHATWG continue to edit the current document
> to produce an interoperable and deployed 1.0, while the IETF begins the process
> to produce a new document describing a 1.1 version of the protocol.

It seems plausible that we may need a revision of the protocol down the line. But I think that developing the two versions in two separate standards organizations, and doing so simultaneously and without trying to agree together on the right outcome, is not likely to lead to a coherent outcome.

Regards,
Maciej