[RTW] [dispatch] Charter proposal: The activity hitherto known as "RTC-WEB at IETF"

[David Singer]

On Jan 6, 2011, at 4:49 , Marshall Eubanks wrote:

> 
> On Jan 6, 2011, at 6:53 AM, Harald Alvestrand wrote:
> 
>> This is the first of 3 messages going to the DISPATCH list (in the hope of keeping discussions somewhat organized).
>> 
>> This is the draft of a charter for an IETF working group to consider the subject area of "Real time communication in the Web browser platform". This is one of a paired set of activities, the other one being a W3C activity (either within an existing WG or in a new WG) that defines APIs to this functionality.
>> 
>> The two other messages will contain the W3C proposed charter and a kickoff for what's usually the most distracting topic in any such discussion: The name of the group.
> 
> Dear Harold;
> 
> Just to be clear, your intent is to have simultaneously a W3C WG and an IETF WG on this issue ? 
> 
> Shouldn't there be some text about coordination between these efforts ? I don't see much discussion in either 
> charter as to which is gating, but it seems to me that the W3C work would have to be gated on the IETF work. Isn't there a danger that
> the W3C WG might start building on early solutions discussed in the IETF, only to have the IETF WG decide to go in a different direction ? 
> 

Hi 

I'm sorry if this has already been said, but I am pretty sure that the W3C's work should provide a pretty general framework into which all sorts of instantiations (protocols and implementations) can be fit.  An example might be "a URL that addresses the remote end goes here" and a URL has a protocol part (before the colon) and an 'address' part (after it).  Sure, the first protocol instantiated (in definition and code) should be the stuff worked on with the IETF, but the architecture should not preclude others.  I am sure there will be back and forth, and it's important that the functional division into pieces, and the architectural division between 'markup' (w3c) and 'protocol' (ietf) be agreed, and that the final pieces do, in fact work together.

But I think it very important that we see at least two layers of definition here: modularization, framework, and so on, which is pretty general;  and specific modules that fit into that framework and make our first working system, which need to be very specific.

David Singer
Multimedia and Software Standards, Apple Inc.