[r6rs-discuss] meta r6rs

[Chris Hanson]

Thomas Lord wrote:

> Yet, control over the content of R6 is wholly owned (de facto)
> by past editors and their "heirs".   So, even though there is
> economic rivalry over the contents of the document, the contents
> are, at the end of the day, decided by the fiat of a small group.

This is not an accurate characterization.  What actually happened was 
that the steering committee was more-or-less chosen by a group who 
happened to show up for a particular Scheme workshop at which there was 
discussion about the sad state of Scheme standardization.  (Keep in mind 
that I wasn't there and am repeating what I've been told from a few who 
were.)  I believe the primary criterion for selection was general 
respect in the community as a whole, and on that basis I believe this 
group is well chosen.

The members of the steering committee aren't particularly representative 
of the RnRS authors groups, though.  Although all three participated, to 
varying degrees, I think it's fair to say that Mitch is the only one of 
them who was deeply involved.

The editors were chosen by the steering committee, presumably on the 
basis of past accomplishments and willingness to do the work.  At this 
point, after the resignations of Marc and Will, the only editor with 
involvement in past standards is Kent.  As a point of reference, I've 
never even met the other editors, and I was very involved with all the 
past standards.

The conclusion I come to is that this standards group is not 
particularly derived from past authors groups.  An additional fact to 
consider is that many of the "old timers" I have spoken to are unhappy 
about the current documents; while not conclusive, this at least 
suggests that the current group is not acting as the past authors would 
have wished.

Now, although I'm disagreeing with you about this point, I agree with 
your more general point, that this process is less open than it should 
be, and that there's a serious imbalance of power.  I have been worried 
about this for some time, and have done what I could to improve it -- 
for example, I'm partially responsible for there being a public 
ratification, which I consider a minimum requirement for community 
participation.  Nevertheless, I think there's room for improvement in 
the process.

Particularly, the "editors" (or as I call them, "authors") have 
significantly more input than anyone else.  In previous standards, the 
"editors" were actually editors: they wrote down what they understood to 
be the intent of the participants, and feedback from the participants 
fine-tuned that until it was a reasonably accurate reflection of that 
intent.  In this standard, the "editors" write down what they would like 
the document to say, and the community's role is to critique it.  If 
there's insufficient objection from the community, or if the "editors" 
simply don't wish to change the document, it remains as written and 
there's no recourse except the ratification vote.

I don't think this situation was intentional, by the way, just that the 
standardization process is immature and we are only now coming to 
understand what it is and how it works.  That in itself may be a reason 
to refine and restart the process, but I think we need more experience 
with the current process before we are ready for the next one.