Field of web technologies

[annevk]

This terminology continues to be somewhat confusing to folks. I wonder if it can be clarified somehow, perhaps with examples.

[annevk]

(To be clear, this language is from https://participate.whatwg.org/agreement.)

[vfournier17]

Maybe we could provide some examples in an FAQ. It would be a challenge to capture all possible permutations, but hopefully some examples would provide some context.

[othermaciej]

A FAQ for the agreement would be helpful.

[vfournier17]

Anne - would you please provide some examples of how the terminology is confusing folks, so we can try to address those specific questions. For example, are they asking if their specific employer falls within the "field of web technologies"?

[ediosyncratic]

For example, are they asking if their specific employer falls within the "field of web technologies"?

Well, I'm one of the example folk who came to this document and had a hard time deciding what to make of it, so let me illustrate.
I work (at the behest of my employer) on the Qt framework for C++; it's not, as such, a web technology (one could even argue it competes with web technologies, in so far as web-apps compete with C++ apps).
None the less, I review and fix bugs in code that deals with an implementation of the HTTP protocol and code which implements ECMAScript. I have colleagues who (at the behest of the same employer) likewise worth on parsing and displaying HTML.
As such, my employer does work in the "field of web technologies".

On the other hand, an awful lot of modern software deals with the "field of web technologies", if only because ever app talks to the 'net - often using REST APIs, which may be thought of as a web technology - and many let their UI designers work in web technologies, even if the engine that'll be displaying their designs and executing the behaviours they're describing isn't a (general purpose) user agent for the world-wide web.

Six years ago, I was working for a web browser company; I would have had no doubt that they were working in the "field of web technologies". Were I working for some app-developer that incidentally uses XMLHTTPRequest to manage communication with some web servers to obtain JSON data for use by our app, that does something otherwise unrelated to web-browsing, I probably wouldn't consider that employer to be in the "field of web technologies". As it is, however, my employer is involved in the field of web technologies, but none the less is so only to the limited degree that most apps are these days, albeit we're the framework providing the app-developers with the neatly-packaged form of those technologies, that lets them bolt them together with other software seamlessly.

So where is the "bright line" distinction between employers in the "field of web technologies" and the rest of the software industry ?

At some level, the phrasing belongs to 1995: there is no longer a crisp boundary, within "software", that separates "web technologies" from the rest - such has been the success of the web.
So go back and think about why you would need my employer to sign up, and not accept contributions from me unless they do. Is it because they write software (that, like much modern software, uses web technologies) ? I doubt it.

I strongly suspect what matters is whether my employer is A Player in the game of the evolution of the web; do they purport to innovate new ways of using the web ? Are they likely to want to patent some idea that I'm likely to influence WhatWG to exercise in a spec (or oblige implementors to exercise in all implementations of a spec) ? Are they actively involved (whether as a participant in the standards process or as a maverick bucking the standard-setters' authority) in the evolution of web standards ?

I'm not sure what actually matters to you, because you asked a very vague question; but perhaps the above can clarify why I found it vague. I decided my employer wasn't so involved in web technologies that I couldn't reasonably correct a trivial grammatical infelicity in on of your standards; but you have to decide where you draw your line.

[ediosyncratic]

Following further discussion on #85, I pause to think back to how this all started. I submitted an issue against the standard, pointing out a trivial typo. Someone asked me to turn that into a pull request. Anyone with an existing fork and a local check-out could have fixed the issue I pointed out in less time (c. a minute) than it took me to create my own fork and check it out locally (c. five minutes). Anyone already signed up to contribute could have turned their fix into a PR in about the same amount of time as it took me to do so (c. a minute), except for the large amount of time it in fact took me to read several legal agreements, work out that there was some uncertainty as to whether I should sign up or ask my employer to do so, sign up as myself anyway and carefully explain why in the PR. The time it would have taken to get a corporate hierarchy to decide to spend lawyer time on deciding whether to sign up (much less actually conducting that legal sign-up) would dwarf all of that; but the overhead I had to put up with to contribute dwarfed the time and effort someone already signed up would have needed to deal with the issue I reported.

And thus, a humble suggestion:

• please, just fix trivial bugs, when they're reported, rather than asking a reporter who's not yet signed up to do it.

This would be much less hassle for everyone. If someone reports an issue, without sending you a PR, and the issue is trivial to fix, don't ask them to go through all that legalese. Just Don't.

[yoavweiss]

FWIW, the W3C process enables editors to mark trivial contributions (e.g. typo fixes) as "non-substantive", to avoid having to sign up casual contributors to IPR commitments. It might be worthwhile to consider something similar for the WHATWG.

[annevk]

@ediosyncratic yeah, I guess we should at least check whether the reporter would meet the requirements for individuals before asking. At least until #63 is addressed.

[annevk]

@ediosyncratic also, belated apologies for having wasted your time on this. I hope it won't deter you from contributing in whatever capacity your employer enables. I really hope we can simplify the setup, but unfortunately it will take time. It took well over a year to get the initial agreement and amending it is a non-trivial operation as I understand it.

[othermaciej]

A quick update: legal representatives for the WHATWG Steering Group entities are working on a new and clearer definition of Field of Web Technologies. The new definition will be formally part of policy documents and will also include an advisory FAQ. Hopefully that will help address this and other similar concerns.

[annevk]

DOM got a contribution from a 1Password developer: whatwg/dom#758 and I'm not super clear which agreement has to be signed for this case.

[oliverdunk]

To provide some context to @annevk's question, I keep full rights to a piece of work like this under my contract. I assume that making the company sign is a precaution for when that isn't the case, and I sympathise with how tricky this sort of thing can be. That said, any legal paperwork is a slow and boring process, and it definitely introduces a hurdle to contributing. If 1Password had to sign the agreement, they would need to take time to work out the implications of doing so, and that's a burden I'd be hesitant to put on them. Since we don't build browsers or write specs, the entity agreement seems like overkill.

[henceproved]

@oliverdunk Congratulations on your first PR! :) Is Agilebits the company you work for?

[oliverdunk]

@henceproved Yep! (although I’m a contractor instead of an employee)

[oliverdunk]

Leaving a polite bump :) I'd love to get contributing.

[henceproved]

@oliverdunk Thanks for the ping. As per the participant agreement, employee or contractor are treated the same way. It looks like 1password is interested-to-influencing web standards, at least in the space of security (Web Authn, for instance), so I would have a hard time arguing that they are not a candidate for participating as an entity. Would you like to have a conversation and see if they are willing to sign the agreement as an entity?

[foolip]

The new definitions are here:
https://whatwg.org/ipr-policy#210-field-of-web-technologies
https://whatwg.org/ipr-policy#2101-work-in-the-field-of-web-technologies