<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Hi the FTCG participants and potential participants on the MPEG-OTSPEC list,<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">(It’s intentional that the <a href="mailto:public-font-text@w3.org" class="">FTCG list</a> isn’t cc’ed, as there’re already 32 people subscribing to that list and I’m not sure if messaging both lists will lead to a lot duplicated emails… Will shout out on that list and lead people to this thread.)<br class=""><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">This is Liang, the acting chair of the newly created Font and Text Community Group (FTCG). I’m here to keep you guys updated about the progress of properly setting up the FTCG.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><b class="">TL;DR:</b></div><div class=""><br class=""></div></div><blockquote style="margin: 0 0 0 40px; border: none; padding: 0px;" class=""><div class=""><div class="">1. We need to have a charter clear about our scope, so employees of companies with strict legal considerations can participate in our discussions.</div></div><div class=""><div class=""><br class=""></div></div><div class=""><div class="">2. We can first have a temporary charter that clarifies the FTCG is <i class="">not</i> yet for making technical contributions, then we gradually opt in clearly defined areas where we do want to accept technical contributions.</div></div><div class=""><div class=""><br class=""></div></div><div class=""><div class="">3. If we don’t handle this right, we lose the opportunity of having major players in this industry on board, and this FTCG thing is not gonna be much different from any other individual effort.</div></div><div class=""><div class=""><br class=""></div></div><div class=""><div class="">4. We can move our discussions to the FTCG (basically, away from this MPEG-OTSPEC list’s protection) once we all understand this situation.</div></div><div class=""><div class=""><br class=""></div></div><div class=""><div class="">5. Simon and I will soon create a pull request to <a href="https://github.com/font-text/font-text.github.io" class="">https://github.com/font-text/font-text.github.io</a> with a draft charter for us to discuss.</div></div></blockquote><div class=""><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">---</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Background for who didn’t get to participate in Meeting 2:</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">We had a consensus that we would create a W3C Community Group (CG) for our discussions and future work. See the meeting resolutions and notes for details:</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><blockquote style="margin: 0 0 0 40px; border: none; padding: 0px;" class=""><div class=""><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KoknOb0IMAPeiLhifvc_AqB7s3rs6VKOsTQg_oCDypQ/edit?usp=sharing" class="">https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KoknOb0IMAPeiLhifvc_AqB7s3rs6VKOsTQg_oCDypQ/edit?usp=sharing</a></div></blockquote><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">The initial step, creating the CG, was done not long after the meeting was wrapped up, and its official page lives here:</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span><a href="https://www.w3.org/community/font-text/" class="">https://www.w3.org/community/font-text/</a></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I became the “chair” listed on the webpage because of the CG website’s mechanism. Because it’s not a formal decision but we do need someone to do some chairing work now, I consider myself to be an “acting chair”. Hope we’ll formally choose the chairs soon.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">---</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I’d like to first remind you of some reasons why we would like to form an organization, preferably under some existing, larger organization:</div><div class=""><br class=""></div></div><blockquote style="margin: 0 0 0 40px; border: none; padding: 0px;" class=""><div class=""><div class="">1. IP policy for protecting both the participants and consumers of the content we’ll create.</div></div><div class=""><div class="">2. A clear process for making decisions and guidance from the hosting organization.</div></div><div class=""><div class="">3. An open and independent space for discussions.</div></div><div class=""><div class="">4. Recognization and participation of major players in the industry.</div></div></blockquote><div class=""><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Now, the creation of this FTCG gives some basic IP policy (item 1), which I hope can support us for a while until we start formally publishing some content. About the item 2, the W3C CG has <a href="https://www.w3.org/community/about/process/" class="">some lightweight requirements about the process</a> and it’s largely up to us to decide the exact process (talking about this in a bit); we now also have Florian and fantasai/Elika from the W3C Advisory Board to guide us through the procedural considerations.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">---</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">About the item 3:</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">We do have our own mailing list now (<a href="mailto:public-font-text@w3.org" class="">public-font-text@w3.org</a>), but it‘s my understanding that a GitHub repo’s issues system (or any proper forum) is a superior solution for pretty much all kinds of discussion, not only technical discussions for an actionable outcome. Think about reliable formatting, labels, per-thread subscription, cross references, assignees… Also think about readability and discoverability of both messages before and after your joining. Also think about how certain messages in a mailing list mysteriously end up in one’s junk box.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Therefore after consulting Florian, I’ve created an independent GitHub organization for the FTCG, with two repos currently, one for all public discussions (font-text/community-group) and one for the GitHub Pages (our mini site)—org and repo names are open to better suggestions:</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span><a href="https://github.com/font-text" class="">https://github.com/font-text</a></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><div class="">However I’ve temporarily disabled the repos’ issues systems, because—</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">We also care about the item 4.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">---</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">The thing about the item 4 is, if we really want to nurture an industry-wide cooperation, we need to clearly define the scope we’d like to work on and accept technical contributions. If we <i class="">don’t</i> a clear definition of the scope and we <i class="">do</i> start making technical contributions, employees of those companies with strict legal considerations will have to back out, because their lawyers need to review the scope in advance then permit their technical contributions.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">The best idea we have now, after discussing with Florian and Simon, is two steps:</div><div class=""><br class=""></div></div></div><blockquote style="margin: 0 0 0 40px; border: none; padding: 0px;" class=""><div class=""><div class=""><div class="">1. First we create a temporary charter that makes it clear we’re <i class="">not</i> doing technical contributions yet—we’re just gonna continue to figure out what are the exact areas we’d like to work on. Those companies should be able to participate at this stage.</div></div></div><div class=""><div class=""><br class=""></div></div><div class=""><div class="">2. We then opt in area by area into the charter, according to our discussions. At this stage, we hope we can work with those companies closely, so we play this carefully enough that we don’t accidentally force our valuable participants to back out.</div></div></blockquote><div class=""><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Simon and I will soon create a pull request to the GitHub Pages repo (<a href="https://github.com/font-text/font-text.github.io" class="">https://github.com/font-text/font-text.github.io</a>, because it’ll host the charter text in a web page) with a draft charter (based on Florian’s suggestions) for us to discuss.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Once we all understand this situation, I’ll enable the repos’ issues systems and make sure there’re clear notices in place pointing to the initial charter (that clarifies we’re not making technical contributions yet).</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">---</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I know, I know, this sounds frustrating. But if we don’t get this right, we’ll lose those companies’ participation, and the FTCG will become just another project with a fraction of the industry on board. And sooner or later we will need to again form some industry-wide cooperation, right? Also, remember, there’re and will always be individual projects outside of this FTCG (HarfBuzz, CommonType, <a href="https://github.com/n8willis/opentype-shaping-documents" class="">n8willis/opentype-shaping-documents</a>, …), so being a bit slow on setting up this CG properly shouldn’t block the hard work we’ve been doing.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">The most valuable aspect of this effort, from I can see now, will be sort of a community center where we have everyone from every corner of this little, bizarre industry, that the whole planet can trust our thorough expertise on digital texts and fonts for any language. We won’t host all the meaningful projects, but we the participants will work on and with them all. Any documents or specs or standards will then just be natural outcomes of that.</div><div class=""><br class="">Best,<br class="">梁海 Liang Hai<br class=""><a href="https://lianghai.github.io" class="">https://lianghai.github.io</a>
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