Re: [Scheme-reports] Fwd: Feedback from implementors?

[John Cowan <cowan@x>]

Grant Rettke scripsit:

> From what I read there was a lot of outrage against the private
> mailing lists that effected the R6RS standard.
>
> Are there private mailing lists that effect the standard new standard
> as well? :(

(I apologize for the length and density of this reply, but I feel it's
important to make the WGs' positions and behavior clear.)

Emphatically no.  There are private mailing lists for the two WGs, which
are explicitly *not* for technical discussion.  They have been used to
discuss membership, infrastructure (the Trac-based system used by WG1
and in part WG2), and in one case to raise a point of order.  In toto
there have been 41 messages posted to either private list, compared to
2424 messages posted to the WG1 public list and 254 posted to the WG2
public list, some of which were crossposts.

Nothing prevents the discussion of the draft by anyone in any venue.
If any member of the WG becomes aware of an editorial issue, they may
resolve it by directly editing the trunk or by filing an editorial
ticket: *all* edits are reviewed by another WG member, generally Alex
or me.  Similarly, a WG member aware of a substantive issue may file
a ticket for it, and it will wind up on a ballot.  If the issue is
discussed at all by the WG, it will be on the publicly readable mailing
list.

Alex sent all known Scheme implementers a version of the current
trunk, basically the third draft plus editorial corrections.  The
scheme-implementors list is set up so that implementers who wish to
comment on it or discuss it at this stage can do so without feeling that
they must defend their decisions openly.  What they say has a special
interest, but no special authority: any criticisms must go through the
process I just outlined.

In short, the WGs are committed to the principle of open covenants
openly arrived at.

-- 
Income tax, if I may be pardoned for saying so,         John Cowan
is a tax on income.  --Lord Macnaghten (1901)           cowan@x

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