MozCampEU2012/Standards: how and why we standardize

Title of Session (should also be the title of your Wiki page): Standards: how and why we standardize

Facilitator(s): David Baron

Are you paid or volunteer staff?: paid

Area of Contribution (Team Name): Platform / Layout

How are you currently involved with the community?: I work on writing and reviewing Layout and CSS code in Gecko. I'm also involved in various W3C standardization efforts, primarily in the CSS Working Group and as Mozilla's representative to the W3C Advisory Committee.

Location of Work (where do you reside?): San Francisco, CA

Talk Length (please choose between 30, 60, 90, 120 minutes): 60

Summary: I want to have a discussion about standards and how Mozilla is and should be involved in standards. In particular, I probably want to spend the first 10-15 minutes giving some brief background about how I look at our involvement in standards (both in terms of what we do and why) and about how standardization works at the W3C. Then I'd like to open up to a discussion and questions about standardization: what do you want to know? What do you think we should or shouldn't be doing? Potential topics for discussion (though I'm very open to others): where to standardize, openness of standards process, patent policy, speed of process, getting the right parties involved, when the right time to standardize is, how to interact with and implement standards in development, speaking as an individual or on behalf of an organization, dealing with things that have to be private.

How your session furthers the MozCamp Goals (https://wiki.mozilla.org/MozCampEU2012/Tracks): Standards have a close relationship to the development of many features in Gecko, the layout engine used in Firefox on desktop and mobile and for B2G. Having a better understanding of standardization can help contributors engage better in Gecko development.

Expected Outcome or Deliverable: Improve understanding of how standards are created, how Mozilla participates in that creation, and how we think about whether and when to standardize.

Desired Audience Type or Skill-set: general

Equipment Needs (Video projector already included): none

To Be Completed by the Audience-

(If you would like) Submit a Question for the Speaker(s) or indicate what information you hope to gain by attending this talk here:

Place your name here if you would like to attend this talk:

• Ziggy Maes
• Paolo Amadini
• Julia Buchner
• Jérémie Patonnier
• Michael Kohler :mkohler