Notes on standardization/specification

[Owen Taylor]

Just quickly writing up some thoughts I had on the standardization/
specification process from the discussion we just finished at XDevConf:

There are basically three different pieces that we might want to worry
about standardizing or specifying:

 - APIs
 - Network protocols
 - Inter-application protocols

The last is what has been most discussed/worked on in the context of
freedesktop.org over the last couple of years. This is the one where we
have a goal that really matches the IETF/W3C/etc: interoperability.

But for the other pieces - APIs and network protocols... I'd argue that
we really have different goals in mind:

 - Ensuring API and ability stability
 - Encouraging formal specification 
 - Encouraging finishing things. To avoid the 0.9 syndrome.

What I'd really encourage is that we need to make a "standards process"
that tries to bring these goals to the open source development model
rather than imposing some foreign preexisting structure. We can't
let our development be dominated by people who enjoy sitting on
conference calls.

So, concretely:

 - A lightweight standardization process is definitely need for
   the interop specs; XEMBED, Desktop files, wm-spec, etc.
 
 - Specification and test cases have to be cultural rather than imposed.
   We need to write down a good best-practices document and ostracize 
   people who don't follow them.

 - I think an architectural review board is essentially useless; review
   needs to be done by people interested in the particular issues.
   The way to get that review is to encourage that specification
   culture.
 
 - The goal of finishing off specs and APIs is best done via a "release
   process"; have a boat that people have to get on or miss. Force
   people to be part of the release to get to a 1.0.

Regards,
						Owen

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