Registry Entries before the Registry is finalized

[egekorkan]

The wording from the process document and our registry process assumes a running registry. However, there is no officially running registry until the document reaches the final status of the track (equivalent of the REC). So what happens if someone wants to submit a registry entry before the registry is finalized? Can we collect entries before becoming a "W3C Registry"? What happens if we change the registry definition after there are living entries in the registry?

This should be discussed with PLH. I cannot find anything concrete in other groups' registries. See examples below:

• https://www.w3.org/TR/ttml-profile-registry/#registry-profile-designator-specifications
• https://www.w3.org/TR/webcodecs-codec-registry/#audio-codec-registry (the first draft registry version: https://www.w3.org/TR/2022/DRY-webcodecs-codec-registry-20221013/#audio-codec-registry)
• https://www.w3.org/TR/aac-registry/#symbol-registry

[egekorkan]

Discussion from the call:

• We want to get "pilot" submissions so that we can identify issues early on and improve our process. We limit submissions to the bindings managed by the TD TF, thus not accepting submissions from the outside (e.g., OPC UA Binding will not be registered for a year minimum)
• They should be small in number so that if they need to be updated, it is less work.
• This should be mentioned in the registry definition as a note that MUST be removed before transitioning to "W3C Registry"
• We don't move the entries from "initial" to "current" to not give a bad impression to the users of the bindings in the registry, e.g., someone should not build a product using an "initial" version binding.

[egekorkan]

I have created w3c/process#1085 to be clear.

Looked in the new process document and found:

Changes that add new features (i.e., class 4 changes) are allowed in all W3C Registries, without needing them to explicitly indicate that this is allowed.

Class 4 is New features:

Changes that add new functionality, such as new elements, new APIs, new rules, etc.

That means we can even add new rules to the registry, which makes the whole thing even more confusing. What if we add a new field requirement and none of the entries have it. I guess that should be specified by us too