Define new class of WG/IG participants for representing a non-Member company #1105
Description
Dom and Ian pointed out during their CG presentation that it's not possible to add a non-Member company as a member of a Working Group due to the way WG participation is defined in the Process, which only lists Member reps, Invited Experts, and Team reps. This limits their options in experimenting with improvements to CG->WG transitions.
https://www.w3.org/policies/process/#group-participation
In the past W3C has occasionally abused Invited Expert status to enable participation on behalf of a non-Member company. IIRC this was sometimes done temporarily while onboarding a Member, and sometimes on an ad-hoc basis for other reasons. But this kind of usage is not a great fit for the IE system and licensing agreements.
I suggest defining a new class of participants in the Process, non-Member representatives, and state that the Team can, with AC approval, set up programs to enable non-Member representatives to participate in WGs and IGs.
Then Dom and Ian can outline the parameters of an experimental program, run it past the AC, and have their experimental participants function as Working Group Members under the same IPR policies as normal Member participants. It also sets us up for other types of experimentation in W3C participation models in the future, and lets the IE program focus on its primary purpose.