What is the full lifecyle of a CG specification?

[ianbjacobs]

The current well-understood lifecycle of a CG specification is:

• Draft
• Final

We are likely to want to enhance the lifecycle based on real experiences and anticipated enhancements to the program. For example we might add these states:

• Draft with early traction. In discussions about enhancing guarantees associated with CG specs (see issue CG Specifications with traction that do not advance to a WG may weaken or harm the W3C mission #19) we have contemplated changes once we've established that a CG specification has traction (see issue How do we establish that a CG Specification has traction? #21).
• Draft with significant traction. (see issue How do we establish that a CG Specification has traction? #21).
• Discontinued. Work on this specification has stopped, for the reasons listed in the document status section. Reasons might include:
  • Explicit CG decision to stop work.
  • CG abandoned it without explicit decision.
  • Staff decision to stop work (e.g., a spec with traction but no standardization plans).
    Work might resume on this specification in the future (in the same or different group).
  • Staff have determined the specification lacks sufficient market relevance and it should not be used.
• Transitioned. When W3C or another SDO takes up a CG specification.

For any new lifecycle states, we need to evaluate what obligations are placed on Staff (e.g., to monitor market adoption).

[dontcallmedom]

as part of the lifecycle, we should document signals (similar to the "intent to *" in browser code land) of when a CG thinks its work is ready for adoption, when the relevant WG/SDO is read to accept it, when it is actually merged in

[riannella]

Keen to see a "Discontinued" option soon....

[dontcallmedom]

See also related WICG discussion WICG/admin#138

[ianbjacobs]

See draft CG Specification Lifecycle

[riannella]

It would be good to map/reuse some of the same maturity levels used in the W3C Process (for consistency across W3C):
https://www.w3.org/policies/process/#maturity-stages

For example:

• Community Draft (=WD)
• Community Specification (=REC)
• Community Superseded (moved to another place = Superseded)
• Community Archived (no longer developed = Discontinued Draft)

[ianbjacobs]

Hi @riannella. One concern about reusing terminology is creating confusion between the CG incubation process and the standardization process. It's a priority to reduce the chance of confusion.

[riannella]

Sure...I understand...that is why I am proposing to prepend "Community" to ALL maturity levels....