OpenJS Standards WG Session  ## Metadata - Author: [[OpenJS Foundation]] - Full Title: OpenJS Standards WG Session - Category: #articles - Document Note: --- tags: [#openjs, #standards, #workinggroup] - #openjs - #standards - #workinggroup Author: OpenJS Foundation Standards WG Source: OpenJS Standards WG Session (YouTube) Reference: [Transcript](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wDoK0t_H-g) date created: 2025-08-23 23:59 --- # Title: OpenJS Standards Working Group – Roles, Challenges, and Opportunities ## Table of Contents: - [📝 Summary](#-summary) - [📖 Main Content](#-main-content) - [🗒️ Notes](#️-notes) - [📖 References](#-references) - [🗣️ Paraphrase](#-paraphrase) - [📰 Newsletter](#-newsletter) - [✅ Action Items](#-action-items) - [🧪 Hypotheses](#-hypotheses) - [📊 Methodology](#-methodology) - [❓ Questions](#-questions) - [🔮 Future Research](#-future-research) - [💡 Implications](#-implications) - [🧠 Learning Styles Assessment](#-learning-styles-assessment) - [📊 Accessibility Assessment](#-accessibility-assessment) - [🌍 DEIB Assessment](#-deib-assessment) - [✅ Logical Validity](#-logical-validity) - [🔍 DARVO Analysis](#-darvo-analysis) - [🔍 SEO Evaluation](#-seo-evaluation) - [🎯 Conclusion](#-conclusion) --- ## 📝 Summary: The OpenJS Standards Working Group (WG) provides a bridge between **open-source JavaScript projects** and **standards bodies** like W3C, TC39, Unicode, and ECMA. The session outlined its history, role, and focus on supporting projects to navigate complex governance structures, participate safely in standardization, and avoid “jerk-filled” spaces. Major themes included: - Building **playbooks and guidance** for participation. - Coordinating representation for projects like Node and Webpack. - Documenting the **impact of open-source projects** on standards. - Offering a safe space for **pre-standardization collaboration**. - Prioritizing **real developer problems** rather than abstract specs. --- ## 📖 Main Content: The WG acts as a **liaison, educator, and advocate** for open-source projects engaging in standards. It avoids authoring specs itself but fosters participation and provides guidance. Key areas: - **History**: Traces back to jQuery Foundation’s role at TC39. - **Goals**: Expand opportunities for projects to engage in standards and onboard new contributors. - **Current Work**: Documentation refresh, Secure the Web Forward workshop, support for representatives like Lea Verou, and relationship management with standards bodies. - **Challenges**: Dynamic governance, IP complexities, unclear representation, scattered communication. - **Solutions Proposed**: Playbooks, centralized reporting, mentorship, project consensus-building, and visibility improvements. ### 🗒️ Notes - [00:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wDoK0t_H-g&t=5) → WG origins and jQuery Foundation’s early standards work. - [02:41](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wDoK0t_H-g&t=161) → Strategic directions: community collaboration, education, safe participation. - [07:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wDoK0t_H-g&t=474) → Upcoming workshops and guidelines revision. - [10:11](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wDoK0t_H-g&t=611) → Documentation and representation improvements. - [15:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wDoK0t_H-g&t=908) → Call for centralized awareness of standards updates. - [21:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wDoK0t_H-g&t=1304) → Node package.json discussion and need for legitimacy. - [28:02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wDoK0t_H-g&t=1682) → Playbooks to guide collaboration. - [34:38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wDoK0t_H-g&t=2078) → Governance complexity in open-source projects. - [40:37](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wDoK0t_H-g&t=2437) → Pre-standardization process for IP protection. - [47:03](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wDoK0t_H-g&t=2823) → Mentorship and safe onboarding emphasized. - [49:14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wDoK0t_H-g&t=2954) → Gaps vs. frameworks in standardization focus. - [53:01](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wDoK0t_H-g&t=3181) → Better communication and contextual sharing needed. --- ## 📖 References: - OpenJS Foundation Standards WG Repo - TC39 and W3C documentation - Linux Foundation governance guidance --- ## 🗣️ Paraphrase: 1. **Original**: “We’re not here to author OpenJS specs; our remit is open source.” **Paraphrase**: The WG won’t produce its own specifications but instead focuses on helping open-source projects influence existing standards bodies. 2. **Original**: “A lot of skills needed for specs are like diplomacy, not software dev.” **Paraphrase**: Success in standardization requires negotiation and diplomacy, skills distinct from coding. --- ## 📰 Newsletter: 🌐 **OpenJS Standards Working Group: Bridging OSS & Standards** The OpenJS Standards WG has been buzzing with activity—revamping documentation, mentoring newcomers, and prepping for the **Secure the Web Forward workshop** this fall. - 🏛️ Stronger **liaisons with TC39, Unicode, ECMA, W3C**. - 📚 New **playbooks** for open-source projects joining standards efforts. - 💬 Calls for **centralized updates** on new standards impacting projects. - 👥 Focus on **mentorship and safe onboarding** for contributors. Want to help shape the future of JavaScript standards? Join the discussion: [OpenJS WG Repo](https://github.com/openjs-foundation/standards) --- ## ✅ Action Items: - Apply WG lessons to **WordPress contributor onboarding**—simplify standards engagement. - Use **playbook model** for FAIR schema + WPCC governance. - Advocate at GoDaddy for **structured OSPO representation in standards bodies**. - Document WordPress’s **historical influence on web standards** (aligns with storytelling emphasis). - Explore **mentorship opportunities**: bridging standards literacy for WP community contributors. --- ## 🧪 Hypotheses: - Clearer playbooks reduce project confusion in standards work. - Centralized reporting increases awareness of standards by 50%. - Mentorship pathways improve retention of new contributors. ### 📊 Methodology: - Surveys of OSS contributors pre/post playbook rollout. - Metrics on engagement with centralized reports. - Track contributor onboarding success over 6–12 months. ### ❓ Questions: - Should OSS foundations focus only on gaps or also on frameworks? - How can open-source projects better document their standards impact? - What role should governance structures play in appointing representatives? ### 🔮 Future Research: - Study how OSS foundations influence **international standards ecosystems**. - Analyze long-term career outcomes for contributors mentored in WG. - Research on balancing **project autonomy vs. centralized coordination**. ### 💡 Implications: - Provides a governance model adaptable to WordPress & WPCC. - Could shape how OSPOs structure participation in standards. - Enhances open-source visibility in critical web infrastructure. --- ## 🧠 Learning Styles Assessment: - **Visual**: Few diagrams; add flowcharts of WG governance. - **Aural**: Transcript → audio version could help. - **Verbal**: Strong storytelling but jargon-heavy. - **Kinesthetic**: Needs interactive simulations (e.g., spec-drafting exercises). - **Logical**: Good causal reasoning in governance discussion. - **Social**: High collaboration emphasis. - **Solitary**: Few reflection prompts; add journaling tasks. - **Naturalistic**: No references—could add analogies to ecosystems. --- ## 📊 Accessibility Assessment: - Transcript improves accessibility. - Needs **alt text for slides**. - Keyboard nav support not mentioned. - Improve: **high-contrast slide templates** and plain-language summaries. --- ## 🌍 DEIB Assessment: - Inclusive tone: “no jerks” culture. - Gender representation (Lea Verou) noted, but broader representation missing. - Jargon may exclude newcomers → simplify terms. - Improve: add **global case studies** beyond Node/webpack. --- ## ✅ Logical Validity: - **Strong reasoning**: OSS history → standards influence (deductive). - **Balanced**: Admits limits of OpenJS remit. - **Fallacies**: None major; minor **appeal to tradition** (legacy of jQu - Summary: The Standards Working Group is a space for all openJS projects to collaborate on standards. They monitor evolving standards and educate projects on developments that may affect them, providing feedback on proposals and helping them formulate strategies. They have published a guide for identifying and resolving web platform bugs, support a representative on the W3C's technical architecture group, manage liaison relationships and partnerships, and host workshops. The group aims to help open source projects participate in standardization efforts in a safe and productive way. They are looking for feedback on how to leverage the foundation for cross-project participation and how to liaise with other organizations. - URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wDoK0t_H-g&list=PLyspMSh4XhLO15jJD9Sj069fN18j12AbQ&index=7&ab_channel=OpenJSFoundation okay so we are doing a little intro tothe standards working groupum that I think alluded to this morningduring the CPC retroumthis is a space for all of the projectsif you want to come you know collaborateon on standards we have a repo where weorganize our workum this is also in the if you wanted toclick on these it's in the issue for thecollab Summit the slides and then you can check out the all the pastvideos of our meetings onon YouTube butyou may not be aware that openjs'sprojects have had a pretty long historyinfluencing web standards and I thinkthat's pretty coolum and that's kind of the primary driverwhich behind likehaving a standards working group in thein the first placeum when I think they actually this startedbecause of a session that we had atcollab Summitin Berlin or something like that I thinkthat I think our working group startedthere now that that's coming to mindI know it was a while ago Dude like Iknow I'm old Godyeahwell so a timeline um I guess that wouldhave beenum 2016 or 2017 somewhere in that that realmumChristian might knowwe I don't know anyway so my memory issuper good too uh so we evaluateddifferent things that we could do withthis group and that's this list that yousee before you strategically what's thebest way to direct our limited resourcesand our limited energy and I you knowagain just like really hyper quickhistory here the jQuery Foundation yes there was a jQuery Foundationum a long time ago sent people to tc39they sent Yehuda and they sent Rick andthey sent some other folks to go youknow represent generically webdevelopers but also uh you know thejQuery project was filling a lot of gapsandum so they they were participating thereand then the JS Foundation sort ofinherited that we had moment JS whichhas beenhas been pretty influential on the tc39 workwe've had globalize which has beeninfluential on theinternationalization species and so onso we've got all these like projectsthat have have been a big part of thatand so we just kind of wanted to carrythat forward into the into the openjsfoundation and we're doing that throughthe working group soum strategic directions that we lookedat like what could if we got everybodytogether what could our purpose be what could we really beum spending our time on uh andultimately after interviewing a lot ofthe projects and talking to a lot of youall theum primarydirection that was asked was like canyou help usacreate more opportunities for our our JSCommunity for our open source projectsto convene build opinions share feedbackand and so on if we needed to and wanted to go provide feedback to a w3c workinggroup or to the tc39 or to tc53 or toany of those other groupsum and then the secondarilywe had a lot of feedback from people whosaid I would like to get more involvedin thisbut it's confusing so you knowhow can we do how can we um helpnewcomers to a standardization effortfeel like they can participate um and and like learn and on board andkind of figure out what that system isall about because it is a lot differentfrom open source developmentso um our our groupfocused on two and five thanks to inputfrom from many of you all uh and thenyou know with number six making it aplace that was hopefully jerk free orjerk reduction strategy uh as a uh as a consequence soum when we think of our projects andthings that we want to do as efforts inthe standards working group it's withthose two primary uh object strategicdirections in mind doesn't mean we won'teventually maybe come back to some ofthese it's just this is where we feellike the our communities want us tospend more timeum so our purpose and this is on therepo is to actively monitor evolvingstandards and educate projects about developments that might affect them andhelp them formulate strategies uh thatthey can take to differentstandards developing organizationsum this does not mean that we're a placeto develop those specs we're not tryingto be a space for specificationdevelopmentourselves that we're an open sourceorganization that is our our remit whatwe might do is provide feedback on a proposal that you you know you areconsidering or feedback on some effortthat your project has highlighted if youwanted to talk to us as a safe spacesort of to to to kick the tires on thatbut we're not we're not going to beauthoring openjs specs and e-time soonum so things that we have spent our time on lately we published a concise guideto identifying and resolving a webplatform bugum for a time there was some decentdocumentation on how to do this and wefound that that had kind of gone out ofdate and slash had fallen off the radarwas hard to surface so we just sort ofrefreshed somedocumentation and cited a lot of greatresources that already are out there inthe wild so this is a living document we have been supporting a woman namedLeia veru if you don't know Leia she'sawesome but she is a representative onthe w3c's technical architecture groupand we support her to attend sherepresents the openjs community andrecently a big conversation at the w3ctag has been on how can we get moreinput more engagement with the opensource developer Community because you you know franklybrowser Engineers right C they don'twrite JavaScript soum like we need we need some more inputfrom our actual users and our you knowactual actual umuh people using these apis so uh that'sbeen really valuable she comes to themeetings uh and and does report outs andand we have really great conversationsum to to for her to take back um we manage the liaison relationshipsand Partnerships with other standardsdeveloping organizationsum so that's ekma International theUnicode Consortium and w3c and then alsoopen source initiatives so those are thefour that openjs's officially affiliatedwithum there are things that we have to dofrom time to time for those likeparticipate in you know votes and things like that so we typically try and postthat if you're interested in gettinginvolved there that's the way you canthere's a secure the web forwardWorkshop which I'm pretty jazzed aboutthis is aw3c Workshop if you've ever been to oneof thosethey're very collaborative they'rethey're more like this they're likesomebody will get up and gab for alittle bit and then they kind of dobreakout sessions andum usually keep it kind of small and anywayum we were trying to have this in Juneand London but we just don't have enoughtime to pull all the right peopletogether so we're going to postpone itprobably till the fallprobably have it in connection with someother events so we know that more peoplecan make it but we're looking for peoplewho want to you know submit a proposalor or you know it doesn't even have tobe like ait's on a talk proposal right it's likethis is a problem and you know we needhelp um or I want to talk about potentialSolutions soum that isI want you to go there and I want you tosubmit go to there please and and submita workshop session so these are some ofthe activities that we arewe've been working onum and we'll continue to push forwardand then coming up nextumwe are going to revise the guidelinesfor participant participation and representation so we have from theopenjs community a handful of folks whowear that uh Banner when they go to tc39plenaries for example Jordan guyum some of you have have done that forus we have folks who do that at w3c OSIUnicodeumand the idea is that when you're therewearing the openjs you know Banner uh you're not there necessarily on behalfof your company you're there because theproject has some problem that they aretrying to provide feedback on to thespec onum and we want to just provide moreguidance for folks who are wearing thatbadge not just for them but also forthis for the the TCS and the workinggroups so it's more clear you knowhere's what those folks are there to doand here's like you know uhdocumentation that you can rely on if wesend Wes and he turns out to be a jerk and you know just kidding Wes wouldnever do that that's why I said thatum you know like what like what can whatcan you do and so this is actually greatfeedback recently from guy that we needto like kind of bolster this a littlebit for the TC chairsum documentation of impact so where haveour projects been influencing thesespecifications I think this is reallyimportantbecause again we have a really longhistory of doing this as a community but we have Ten kind of a terrible jobtelling that story either in whole or inpart and if we could do better at thiswe could reallyumreally I think influence things andshake things up in a really powerfulpowerful way soI don't know how we're going to solvethat problem because that's going to behard but I think it's really importantto start asking the questionum and to get get that in your brains is something thatum we want to be tracking and then ofcourse we want to do more concise guidesand resources for open source projectsthat the JS Foundation openjs foundationand for our developers how can they getinvolved how can they accomplish a goalthey might haveumyou know there'sthere's a lot that goes into developinga specification a lot of skills that you need not all of them are analogous tosoftware developmentum it looks a lot more like diplomacyum so how can we help people prepare forthe cold hard realitiesof Standards Warfare just kiddingum soumwhat we want to talk about today is uhhow to leverage the foundation uh and um just cross project uh participationin the standards working groupum so these are kind of like just thediscussion questions I've kind of framedthem as likewhat our objectives are as a workinggroup and some of the the questionsum that we have kicked around that wewould love your feedback onum so as I mentioned openjs are membersof ecma Unicode Consortium w3c an opensource initiative are there other organizations that you need to liaisewithumany any Lia are you doing any liaisingthat you know you think we should knowaboutum that that kind of thing that helps usconnect to the problem of toweling thestory of where our impact is rightum for existing relationships that wehave like with the tc39um are we coordinating or and helping projects to coordinate with the rightpeople uh so that they're gettingrepresentative feedback and it's notjust like oh one person's reallystrongly held opinion about the waysomething should work cool but that maynot be representative of the entire nodeproject so for example so um let's youknow make it clear whenum and help projects kind of navigatethat if they want to give projectfeedback to a working group as node orjQuery or whatever versus like jewelry thinks you should do thisum which I'll give you that for freeum soum can we can we help you with aconsensus view across your projectacross all projects this is somethingthat we might need to engage otheropenjs Foundation projects on and thenyou know other other opportunities uhlike recently with the winners communitygroup at w3c that you want to exploreand that was that was a great example of James Snell came and spoke to usearly and just said hey this is whatwe're trying to kick around and we talkto him about what w3c community groupscould possibly do and it's been a greatI think way to start those conversationssoumand we've had we've done a few of theseso we've had a few uhof you all from the community come andtalk about potential opportunities forcollaboration so this is umthis is sort of the firstslide what do you think how would youlike you know how can how can I help youum help your projects help standards uhand and collect and give and facilitatethis feedback Gathering process in a ina clear waytell meI'm all ears so I think it would be pretty umsoul-crushing for someone to have tocome back and like report on everythingthat was said because that wouldn't begood but even just like a hey here's allthe stuff that we attended like all themeeting minutes that were captured byeach of the projects and I know we sortof do that we don't really have like a coordinated place to say what's new inthe standards that might impact myproject in the past six months and soit's kind of you look everywhere youknow there's stuff on cc39 there's justit's scattered across the web so if wewere just better at indexing it andorganizing it or maybe we blog once amonth with all the stuff that like isout there hidden in plain sight thatwould help me because like I can't Ilearned I'm like I maintain an editorproject I learned a few weeks ago fromsomeone that like there's a new standardbeing worked on for Rich checks editingfinally like 20 years later and I had no idea that was even in the works and I'dlove to participate in that but I didn'teven know it existed so I think it'sjust awareness or justum wading through the noise sometimesit's hard so we do have like at thestart of our standards swg meetings likeif there's been a plenary or if there'sbeen a meeting like the representativewho attended will give a brief but Idon't think that we're good at likesaying okay thanks for this report andnow let's turn that intoum Haman who does the wonderfulsummaries of theum we don't want to like duplicate good work that's already out there we justwant to like link to it organize it yeahorganize it andconnect impact for sure yepwhat aboutI know you mentioned thethe other standard groups you alreadyhave what about themore like private companies that mightor not Implement some of the work thatcome from these groups right likeis there anything in mind when it comes to that let's say like Google has VAthreadand Implement like it is animplementation of the ecmascript rightis there anything it comes to mind likewith that kind of interaction likesomething that can I don't know anythingthat comes in mindso that's a good question andum it actually kind of speaks towhat we draw rightum so umstandards are different from open sourcein a variety of ways the way that openjsengages in standards bodies is differentfrom the way that your individualprivate companies can engage in astandards body we are as a non-profitmember organization we cannot taketechnical like we can't we can't reallywe won't I should say not that wecouldn't I guess we could it is unlikelythat we would take a strong opinion on for example what V8 should Implementbecause that is taking a position onsomething that a member org does andthat's that there'd be dragons Okay sowe're not probably going to do thatumso that would be very unlikely now ifany of your member companies wanted tolearn more about how they could getinvolved in standards andthey wanted to send employees to openjs community stuff and learn through thatVector that we would welcome them warmlybutumyou know that that's a line that weprobably did not crossum with the winter CG in particular uhis open.js or node.js specifically goingto be getting more involved there Imentioned it earlier there's a weirdwhere it's it's weird that like Jamesand I as like node contributors um are a part of this group but yetwe're not really doing anything fornode's sake in it because him and I areboth there for our respective companiesum so is there and I is there an umI don't know is there a conflict ofinterest if I guess myself like wasstarting to act on behalf of node andversel at winter CG or like are we isthere a chance we're getting someone from node to participate in that groupso I think that it kind of points to[Music]number dose right um we want or thesecond Point hereum if if the node project wants to havesomeone that it says okay Ethanwe trust that you will represent ourlike the broad Collective opinionconsists this opinion of our project inthis community we'd like for you to beour designated person you'd you'd say oh it's me and then I would hook you upwith what you needed to go you know getinto the w3c system and be part of thatand all of that kind of thing but that'snot I'm not going to dictate that fornode hell no you know like that's that'sthe project telling us we would like toengage in this way and we would likeEthan and Wes to be our reps and wewould say okay cool let me make surethat you have all the the tools that youneed to do that effectively and I think that's like the better path than than ussaying like oh we've just randomlyarbitrarily decided that Dylan should doit or that Jory should do it or whateverthat's not really a good because itworks better and it will work better ifthe people that we send to these groupsare knowledgeable about like the realproblem space and are fair and balancedand they're you know uh in in theirrepresentation of sort of you know ideas and solutions and that kind of stuff soyeahso with this thing that Ethan justposted this morning about the packageJason I think node has a vested interestin that particular topic node has directcoupling to the format of package JsonThe Proposal is to maybe standardizethat underneath the banner of the winterCG oh interestingum and I was just thinking about itbecause I just posted a comment in therefrom the node side if we were to go say speak on node's behalf thereuhthere is no there is no currentlyexisting as far as I know group thatowns that in the node side right thatprobably the closest would be themodules working group because of the thework on like the the entry oh I justblanked on the engine uh exports that'sthe word I was looking for I'm wonderingif there's some opportunity to likemaybe formalize that from the standardsworking group and say like this is how wesee a per like maybe there needs to belike a charter like maybe anyrepresentative from node would need abacking chartered working group or athat they report back to right on theNode side to give it moremaybe not legitimacy but more likevalue right because also you don't wantthe person to have to come back andReport every single thing on like a TCcall I don't know like that that rightand you don't want to like like the value it forthe worst thing is to think that you'relike negotiating and solving problemswith the right people and then it turnsout that somebody is like wait a secondI have an opinion and then that sort oftakes you down and that that's whatslows the standards development processand soum you know we could advise the the nodeum project to develop its own sort oflike team if you will you know that maybe the chart the the TSC says youknow we're going to appoint a couple offolks to sort of task out the packageum JS thing is I think maybe potentiallySalient to like a lot of our projectsnot just node and so maybe we willactually maybe the openjs standardsworking group wants to do would beinterested in doing that becausewe'd be able to collect more feedbackfrom just beyond it because I don't knowyeah yeah I think that extends to me makes me think about like whom atany of the openjs projects would begetting involved and it's likeum like I'm not on the Node TSC but yetwould I still be a good representativefor the node project then or like if Iif again I like to just like if I'mgonna be the person for node I'm notsaying that I would but like if that'sthe case now do I need to like also have a seat in those meetings or like do Ineed to be like like whoum it's one of those like if we'readding this responsibility to a projectI guess I say we if a Project's takingon this responsibility because it wouldbe Noah's decisionum how do they balance thatum that new responsibility of gettinginvolved and whatnot that's a goodquestion and it's one for I mean nodesprobably the mostdynamically governed project at open I mean just kind of guessing on on that umyou've got a lot of different people whoparticipate in a lot of different likeworking groups and and sectors and so itwould be no small task for one person totry and represent the opinions of likeall of those people and then also tryingto do that in like a fairly objectivewayum so you know I might suggest to theTSC that they they find a couple of folks that they would you know trust toto and whether they need to be on theTSC or not that's totally a differentpoint I would say less meetings isbetter for those folks so you know maybemaybe notum but I don't know that's a that's areally good question for and Ibut I think again like this seems like atopic that would be very valuable for like a broader group of people so evenif node wanted to just say nope we'regoing to want to answer that questionright now you solve it over here thatwould be funI think thethe tension there is thatif it's a spec where at least hopingthat the no the technical direction thatis chosen is agreeable to the nodeproject and the and the and the TSCum well it almost has to be right wellin order to work it absolutely has to be rightum and so I think where I I think theI think it'd be interesting if thestandards working group had again maybeput together for these type specifictypes of cases some sort of guidancethat was like here's a way that we thinkit can work really well and then codifythat because because if say say we wereto both and by the way you did volunteeryou don't get a choice now that you'vesaid thatbut if you started the thing yeah so you'redefinitely look uh but like we would wewould not want to go into that beingrepresentatives of the Viewpoint of thenode project if we didn't have thatstructural agreement with the TSC rightlike otherwise like I think actually nowthat I'm thinking about it likesomething actually probably formal hasto happen for this to to work uh fromthe node project probably from like you said all these other projects that thefoundation is participating in who havea stake in what is the package Jasonspec right like we probably need packageinstallers to be I don't know I don'tthink actually any of them are membersof the foundation but if there was somelevel of like recommendation from thefoundation we could take to them and sayhey here's what we're you're signing upfor like we're gonna all be workingtowarda technical Directionnpm npm can you come to this meeting uh well that too yeah but that's why I'mjust saying I think I feel like somesort of recommendation from like thestandards working group would be veryhelpful in approaching that conversationum so that we have like a Playbook yeahand I I think that's like something thatI could add to our list of things thatwe want to work on which would be morelike play bookie type things and youknow one of the things that causesefforts to fail is not having a reallytightly scoped problem and like saying this is inbounds and this is out ofbounds and the better you're like it'salmost the out of bounds stuff that'seven more important to like say out loudum because that helps everybody frameproductively aroundacceptable Solutions yeah and it makesme think about uh webpack is afoundation project correct it is sowebpack would be very much interested instandardization of packaged you sign andit's like let's make sure that they areat the table for these discussions because it's in that this seems like theperfect way for that all to happen it'slike how can the foundation supportwebpack and node.js and making sure bothbodies are well represented in thepotential advancements that are beingmade in a new standards body so yeahit's awesomeum sothese are some of the things that thatwe care to know from from you all um and and againthis whole process of feedback from theprojects to the spec devs and thenimpact like spec devs made a decisionthis is where they're going with youknow Direction wise is there what's theimpact on our projects like that thatthat whole chain of just understandingis part of what we want to improve andfacilitate so if there are additional ideas or thoughts or things that we cando to make this moreumjust easy like again I I don't I don'tbelieve in meetings you know I do I dobelieve I believe in really goodmeetings but just fewer of themhopefully so I'm not like not trying tosign up people for more standardsmeetings yes Darcy Ethan is responsible and saves batteryby turning the mic offcheck there we goum I know I've come to like one of thesemeetings and also I was a part of uhwhat I think is like a successfulcollaboration uh from the node packageno sorry not package but the tooling working group where we essentially got abunch of people that were not even corecontributors to come around the argumentparsing sort of design spec APIbuild something and then we had somebodywho through Benco basically be able topropose that land it and and get it intocore I'm wondering if the same kind ofmodel would be really helpful here islike bringing the kind of knowledge of like from the current representedRepresentatives that we have almost likebring that forward to this working grouplike how do you design what uh tc39 likespec would look like bring that back geta bunch of people that don't aren'tgoing to be sitting at that tableinvolved in like putting togethersomething like for me I was reallyexcited and still am about the thoughtof like potentially standardizing morebroadly sember like it truly is one of these things that I think that in fiveten years if you were able to like havea summer uh like web API you would belike why didn't I have this before andlike a lot of people would be just likeoh it makes so much sense so I'mwondering if there's a way that we canlike bring forward like the kind ofprocesses or like the documentation thatwe would have to put together and likeI'm willing to come to like this forumbut like I might not be the right personto then take it once it's kind of put together into a good way to present tothese groups like tc39 I might not bethe right person but Jordan could go andpresent on our behalf yeahidea that kind of also speaks to likerecipe slashum playbooks one thing that we do haveto be mindful of when we as a group ofpeople come together andput us back together is of course in theweb space we're largely contributing to royalty-free standardsthe provenance of Ip is still somethingthat is very important and hence one ofthe I think one of the reasons like weprobably won't within the openjsfoundation like be a place where we tryand standardize things because we justdon't have the infrastructure to managethatum but I think there's tools out therethat we could leverage that would kindofum uh help with that concern and thenallow kind of that that sort of pre-specification phase effectively tohappen so that then whatever you guyscreate together can safely be taken toyou know ecma or wherever for um for forfurther standardizationyeah I thinkum I think one of the bigger struggleshere with this sort of coordination isthat everygroupwill tend to have wildly differentgovernance like in general so for example on a small open source projectit might be one person on you know uhtc39 you have to convince a room full ofpeopleum and you know foryou know there's different requirementsfor what what WG and w3cum on node like something that's notcontroversial like two collaborators isenough to get it in on something that'syou know butthe question who speaks for the projectI don't think anyone can ever speak fornote because the current makeup of theTSC can change andthe only thing that is a guarantee isthat when the TSC has made a decisionand its makeup has not changed sincethen and in every other respect that nocan't can't has cannot and has not beenable to stick to things and that's justthe nature of the governance has shownas you said it's dynamically governedright and so trying to figure out allthese things like who makes thedecisions in webpack right uh the createoriginal Creator I have no idea like maybe uh Soca or whatever has some sortof veto power that the othercontributors don't I don't knowum we've had we're having thisdiscussion on earlier today about whohas the keys to a very popular opensource project and like there's lots ofhard questions there so I think that thethe yeah I'm trying to be as diplomaticand vague as I can here right but um Ithink that thethat my advice personally personally my advice would be figure out how you canget as close as possible to a projectconsensus or you know for all of thedifferent groups that are involved inwhatever problem like for standardizingsemper you have to get you know asignificant percentage of the like eightpeople that run the semper spec to beyou know on board and and like that'sjust one of many groups you'd have toinvolve andso it's it's unfortunately there's notlike a silver bullet where you can writea guide and just be like here's how you do it because it'sjust a huge set of politics and andsubtlety and Nuance for each individualgroup maybe guide isn't a bit likepatterns I mean they're like there'sthere's things that could work that hasworked your mileage may vary givenvariables of human beings that areinvolved because you know that happensso but but I think you're actuallygiving me a little bit more like of a push toward we should maybe do more ofthe coordination on the standards WGlevel instead of because like my myinitial attitude about this has beenjust give as much power and agency tothe projects as humanly possible like itis their world you know they should theyshould drive it but it feels like maybea little bit a little bit more help alittle bit more structure on our sidemight actually Empower them more so yeah I'm just wondering though like a projectcan't rep be rep like would nodes sit onthe table at tc39 or whatever here'slike something that might happen likethe TC might say oh well this is thisXYZ featureum you know what would how would thiswork in node or would what would thenode project say about that and we'vegot folks obviously guy and Jordan andothers who are also very close to theproject who might be able toand provide that feedback in the room because they go to the TC meetings andthat kind of stuff but if there wassomething more specific you know my hopewould be that our openjs Representativesat the at ecma would say not that theyspeak for the node project but that theywould take the action item of my hope Isaw the guys what is that they would sayokay well that's a great question let melet's take that back to the TC TSC andand you know get you yeah well if it'snot there's no project associated withthat work again in the case of Summer it's like a theoretical standard thatit's theoretical question it's not ourproject open J yes I don't know anothersimilar one and and what I was going tosay to Jordan's comment uh so we were atBenco and I and a few others wereworking on a V2 of conventional commitsfor a little whileone of the things that stalled it outwas Ben was searching for a standardsbody to host and it was very difficultBen had a ton of people just stopresponding and there was no Pro what's the actual technical term provenance ofthe IP yeah yeah right so there was likesome problems with the original likemissing provenance yeahum but even if and this is the responseto that is even if Ben had had someplace to go to just say likegive me a general swag at the I just usean alexismwait our team jokes Alex give me ageneral like go at like what wherecould this fit what is the like bullet point list of what does it take to be intc39 versus you know an equipmentstandard versus whatever I I think Benwould have probably found that superuseful and like the work stalled out abit just because yeah Ben spent all hisenergy probably trying to figure thatstuff out and not the energy actuallylike on the I'm getting it done yeahright and that that's something Iremember that and that's been long itfeels like ages ago it kind of well itkind of flies yeahum but I mean I think I think in the intervening timeum we've got a little bit more so Imentioned this community specificationlicense like that would be one solutionfor the IP problem rightum so if we had some if we were able toset conventional commits up on acommunity specsystem then they could take it toanother organization with more Authoritymore credibility to to do that so maybe in the weeds question but with somethinglike this since we didn't have theoriginal folks who invented the specwell I'm just wondering like if we did aV2 how different does it technicallyactually have to be to not run into theIP we don't have their sign off problemokay this is my favorite thing to say Iam not a lawyer okay I am not yourlawyerum so you know that that that's aquestion ofdeep complexity that you can't just sort of you knowI mean if it were if you were writing aspecificationbased onsomething that was like a some sourcecode that was licensed Apache 2 youcould probably do that with with adegree of confidence that you're notgoing to have a problem but you aregoing to have to write in a new you'regonna have to rewrite and like for thepackage.json thing where are we going tohit the same issue immediately I don'tthink I mean so I would kind of like to uh almostlike a similar questionum can I come to the standards workinggroup and say hey like I'm motivated tostandardize semper where do we do thisyeah well I mean we kind of had thatconversation didn't we a few weeksmonths ago last month I don't know timeyeah I mean so so you like people willgenerally in in the meetings tell you wethink it's a good idea or we think it'sa you know that's a terrible idea no we're more diplomatic than thatum I mean I think sometimes people comein like the first the first question isdo you agree this is a good idea and wesay yes this is a great ideaum and then the next question might beokay how might I go about doing thiswhat's the okay so what now we draw therest of the owl and the rest of the owlis we need a space for you to startcollaborating uh in a safely rightsafely from an IP perspective so um as youyou know put your ideas on paper asthose ideas make it into a specificationthat hopefullypeople use and Implement you don't wantsome jerk suing everybody whoimplemented that for much money becausethat sucksum that'd be rude rude so uh we want tomake sure that um you're you're settingup a stand a pre-standardization processeffectively that is going to protect your workum and make it very clear that likeburcell is not going toape out because Ethan you knowcontributed something that theyotherwise would have patented so yeahyeah which is so like when's the next uhmeeting because I want to talk aboutpackages yes uh so we meet um bi-weeklyso the next meeting is the 18th um andif you wanted to present or show justyou'd go to the repo and just open an issue and tag it with the with theiragenda issue or label and fantasticand I'm not sure the question gotanswered but if it isn't a project likeagain this com the conventional commitstuff is not an open JS right thing whatdoes that look like like if we were totry to come to the group with that yeahI mean I think we would definitelyprovideI mean my so my job at the LinuxFoundation is to do standards I do standards for all of our projects and sowe do a lot of we get a lot of inquiriesfrom potential projects all the time andthat's effectively what I would justsort of say here are the optionsavailable to you you're not an openjsproject so we're not going to say thatopenjs thinks that you should do this umbut uh but we can give you pointers tohow you might get that done if that'slike if there's an existing relatedcommunity group or you know project underway or whatever likelike one thing I would love to be ableto do is have somebody who is a lawyerand can officially giveadvice on the specifics of one of thesetopicsso is there an Avenue for that so noum so like what we can do and what I cando like I have no problem saying here islike the legal framework and here arethe things that you have to look out for that I have to make sure that ourprojects are looking out forum you know we can we can give you thatgeneric advicewe cannot represent you we cannotrepresent the projects so if if there isa legal question we can help you findand we did this for webpack like we canhelp Source somebody who wouldwho can legally represent youum but it's it's beyond sort of the generic like well here's the frameworkfor how you think about this and youknow here's what the courts have said inthe past or here's how you know thethings have been interpretedum we can't really go beyond that thoughis there any fundingAvenue because that could in theory getexpensive for well it could but that'sbecause but we have to ask like what'sour legal question right like what's whydo we need why do you need a lawyer whatis the legal question for which we need Counciland if that's you know is that yeahyeah oh 16th cool I'm good at datescool yeah thanks to repeat meetings onthe 16ththank youum yeah so anywayum I thinkso one of the things that we couldadvise you on is whether you needed alawyer yeah you know that that'ssomething that that could be a questionthat we answer for you but most of thetime when people think they need alawyer they don't and then when peopledon't think they need a lawyer they doso that's how that goes so the otherthing that we're kind of like runningout of time for is like the otherobjective which is making uh this moreapproachable for just developers rightto get involved um my own path into standards wasfraught with a lot of trolls and a lotof bullies and a lot of jerks and so I'mlike no we're gonna say no to jerkswe're going to make this we're going tomake it easier as easy as we can to getinvolved and so you know how can we bestsurface the depth of experience that ourcommunity has in a scalable way so thatpeople can uhconfidently start engaging or engage from a place of like safe learning andthat kind of stuff right soumhow do we help you start a projectsuccessfully so the conventional commitsI mean this is like this is perfect thisis exactly like what we should behelping our projects doumhow can we help pass on tribal knowledgeand or like thethe baggage of like there be dragonslet's um what do they need to know to besuccessful what are what are some skillsthat they can start to develop if theyreally want to like grow their careerum you know it's not a secret that a lotof these spaces arenot necessarilyopen source friendly all the timeumand we think that we have a lot ofpositivevalues to bring to the table there sohow can we do that and I think we do that by empowering each of you to beyour awesome selvesand get involved so anyway this is thesort of the other side of that butyeah so if there's stuff that you knowthat other people wouldlike to learn or would like mentorshiponum all volunteer Jordan justyeahuh but we but like Michael Champion who's like OG from Microsoft is on ourumis on our committeeumyeah they're great some there's someawesome people but you know uhand they'd love to help you soyeah Dylan oh yeah I got it herelaughshe's out of coffee why are you backthere I'm outgotta get my daily Aid in right so yeah umso I think the last Point's reallyinteresting because you know early on inthe web specs were like new things theyhad never been done before and thena lot of them didn't get adopted andthen the web said hey we should juststandardize what's already been done andso we just spent like 10 or 15 yearskind of doing that and now we're kind ofat the point where we're having tostandardize things that aren't possiblewithout a spec againso do you think the foundation from whatI'm hearing mostly we're focused on likethe gaps like things that have fallenthrough the gaps we're not reallylooking to like standardized node like or right orsomething that big right so are we kindof focused on just kind of filling inthe gaps that are causing those problemsare we looking to actually standardizeon things that are likehey we've got three different opensource projects that kind ofdo testing do we want to standardize away to do testing in JavaScript orsomething like that or what do you thinkour focus should be that's a greatquestion I meanam still in the camp of there are a lotof gaps to fill and so and and wehaven't done a great job um you know tackling those gaps andsolving I mean really the problems weshould solve are the problems that realdevelopers who use our projects and usethe web platform haveand if it's not a real problem thenlet's not spend our time on it becausethat's gonna just you know it's notgonna end up getting getting usedum so my preference is for us to thinkabout but I mean that's my opinion Iyour opinion could be totally differentand I respect that umwe also have to your point a lot ofprojects at openjs that that solve youknow that are they're testing utilitiesand things like thatChristian works on Webdriver you know uhthe in the web drivers back so are therethings and then there's like test262 andthere's like there's the web platformtests and that sort of stuff like arethere things thatum gaps we can fill there whileproviding a space for those folks whocare about testing to convene and and and surface gaps and that kind of stuffand differentiate where there's likesomething to differentiate onbut um yeahso that's my opinionum but ultimately what gets done is whatpeople show up and do right soyeah one thing I just wanted to bring upon this topic was um and I think we've spoken about it before but justvisibility and communication in theproject and how to make one you know howto build those bridges so that people inthe in the projects are aware of what isgoing on and and there's visibility andinto what people are doing on standardsand what standards are part of theseefforts in uh standards bodies throughthe urban Jazz foundation and then alsouh how people can get involved and influence that so thatyou know if people can see that they'rethese things and see somewhere that youknow Darcy's interested in working on asember spec and then someone else sayshey I'm also interested in that I wantto you know join in on that but how canthey sort of become aware of that andand get their own feedback into thatprocess over there and end so justvisibility and and creating thosecommunication channels I think issomething that would be great to thinkabout and focus onI think that's really great feedbackback and I think we haven't done a very good job surfacing you know theconversations that have happenedum you know like that Darcy for exampleum you knowgave that uh proposal and that sort ofstuff then there's like you know againlike the the reports from the plenariesthat come our wayum it's this is really getting methinking about how to make sure thatwhen we do share information that it'salso contextual that it's useful you knowum that the the so what is there in somecases because not everybody has theexperience to know why it matters rightor like what the implication of thatdecision might beumso I think that's that's a that's anarea of improvement that we can focus onand but I think another way that we'llwe'll sort of hopefully grow that musclea little bit is Again by just recording where our impact has been felt and likewhat patterns worked right like you knowthe work that you've doneum the you know the work that uh thatMiles has done you know I think I thinkthat's veryummeaningful andrecording that and sharing that out it Ithink is islearning through the case studies of ofwhat's worked and what hasn't is goingto be good so we're at timeum come to our meetingyou know if you want to foreign, OpenJS Standards WG Session, OpenJS Foundation, 01h3j5z2x3bv0dy7h35s9gk5jc.