[MPEG-OTSPEC] Proposal to discontinue the AdHoc Group

[Adam Twardoch (Lists)]

In https://lists.aau.at/pipermail/mpeg-otspec/2016-February/000674.html

> [Opentype-layout] DRAFT 1.1 : Proposal to redefine OpenType Layout
joining features

Vlad wrote:

> And, as far as the choice of email lists are concerned, I believe the
mpeg-OTspec list offers a spectacular choice of features (that I outlined
in the beginning of this email) but if you believe that there is another
worthy alternative that is far superior to what we have and ought to be
considered as a new industry-wide forum, I would be more than happy to
consider moving the ISO ad-hoc group communications to a new medium. The
reality of today is that none of the lists we are all subscribed to offer
the same set of rich features that Yahoo Group does. Active participation
of all interested parties is all it takes to make it as good of the
industry forum as it can possibly be. And, when it comes to list / group
status - this is OUR forum where every member can be heard, every voice
counted and where people can join the discussions and speak up without list
moderator's approval.

The key part being:

> if you believe that there is another worthy alternative that is far
superior to what we have and ought to be considered as a new industry-wide
forum, I would be more than happy to consider moving the ISO ad-hoc group
communications to a new medium

To me this reads that in 2016, the AHG chair did not exclude the
possibility to replace the Yahoo-hosted or Australian University hosted
e-mail list by another *medium*.

To me this also reads that, for example, a Github issues system could be
seen as such medium. Several AHG members now explained how, 4 years after
that exchange, Github has developed into a platform where technical
discussions happen.

The Github issues system can effectively replace e-mail threads, with
formatting being better preserved than in e-mail (I really have
difficulties sometimes to pick who said what in a long e-mail thread
because the quoting styles are so inconsistent).

The Github repo itself can act as a versionable file repository, much more
effectively than e-mail attachments. The underlying Git system takes care
of the version tracking.

If the AHG mandate is up for renewal soon, I'd like to suggest that the AHG
adopts the Github repo as the "reflector", with this e-mail list only being
used as a supplementary medium for non-technical communication such as
organizational announcements etc.

A.



On Thu, 24 Sep 2020 at 05:13, Dave Crossland <dcrossland at google.com> wrote:

>
>
> On Wed, Sep 23, 2020 at 1:23 PM John Hudson <john at tiro.ca> wrote:
>
>> [a] [authoring proposals for OFF] needs to be entirely separate and
>> self-governing, with its own procedures and tools for communication,
>> collaborative editing, versioning, etc.,
>>
>
>>
> [b] and only after it has completed its work on specific issues should it
>> submit, through national standards bodies, proposals to OFF.
>>
>
> To the first part, I am optimistic that soon enough,
> https://github.com/MPEGGroup/OpenFontFormat can work as a place better
> than https://github.com/commontype or https://github.com/opentype or
> https://github.com/googlefonts/colr-gradients-spec or github.com/font-text
> or github.com/microsoft/typography-issues or $many_other_examples, for
> this kind of authoring of proposals.
>
> To the second part, I think submitting the proposals directly through
> national standards bodies is a terrible idea, and the AHG has been working
> really well as a buffy to take proposals from the dispersed expert
> community and "buffer" them from the ISO processes.
>
> I think the process documentation that I've proposed at
> https://github.com/MPEGGroup/OpenFontFormat/pull/5/files?short_path=04c6e90#diff-04c6e90faac2675aa89e2176d2eec7d8
> and Vlad has collaboratively edited with contributioins from Caleb is
> demonstrating that this MPEG repo can work. I said the other day it would
> be nice to move whole-hog from this mailing list to that repo, but I accept
> that for now there is a 2 step process for the expert community, where
> proposals are authored "elsewhere" in the first step, and secondly
> submitted here to this email list. I think ideally the bulk of discussion
> can (rather, will continue to) happen 'elsewhere' and this 2nd step on this
> list will hopefully not involve much discussion, and rather the traffic on
> this list will subside and become focused on voicing approvals or
> objections to proposals.
>
> I also am happy that by having that MPEGGroup repo, it is much easier to
> track what happens in all the other Github repos, if they continue, from a
> central place.
>
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