freedesktop.org specification process

[Will Stephenson]

On Thursday 09 July 2009 23:07:39 Rodney Dawes wrote:
> It also means that once
> that acceptance is gained, you either don't use the new namespace, or
> you are immediately required to break API compatibility. 

Yes.  The standardisation process implies that changes (not just the service 
name) will be changed during standardisation.  This only ends when version 1.0 
is standardised.  Using standards-track systems requires that developers and 
distributions accept that they will be subject to change.

> And I think
> encouraging the breaking of compatibility for this is probably one of
> the last things we want to do. This would be very painful for
> distributions and developers to deal with.

Ad absurdum, this suggests that API compatibility should never be broken 
before standardisation either.  When does the fixing and changing process take 
place?  

Will