[cabfpub] Ballot process proposal

[Peter Bowen]

> On Nov 18, 2016, at 4:39 AM, Gervase Markham <gerv at mozilla.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi Peter,
> 
> This seems like an excellent way forward. Two questions:
> 
> 1) can you help me understand the definitions of FG and FMG you are
> using here? My understanding was that an FG was an entirely new
> document, and an FMG was, in effect, a diff (or perhaps, technically, an
> existing document with the diff applied) - but your definitions seem to
> be different.

A Final Maintenance Guideline is the result of applying a diff to an existing FG or FMG.  Continuing your analogy of a diff, the IPR policy is designed around doing reviews of releases not reviews of changes/pull requests.  I think a “Final Guideline” is basically a new major version of a Guideline and a Final Maintenance Guideline is a new minor version of a Guideline.

This does suggest a possible process optimization — we allow multiple ballots be included in a FMG.  This would delay adoption of the guideline but would also reduce the number of reviews needed.  If this is considered to be desirable, we could increate the maximum duration between announcement of results of a ballot and initiation of the Review Period.  This would come at the tradeoff of a longer potential period from the start of the ballot review period to the approval of a guideline containing the changes.

Thanks,
Peter