Sam Ruby, IBM,
Paul Cotton, Microsoft,
Maciej Stachowiak, Apple
Team Contact
(FTE %: 45)
Michael Smith, W3C/Keio
Usual Meeting Schedule
Teleconferences: up to 1 per week, as needed
Face-to-face: up to 2 per year
Scope
This group will maintain and produce incremental revisions to the HTML
specification, which includes the series of specifications previously published
as XHTML version 1. Both XML and 'classic HTML' syntaxes will be produced.
The Group will define conformance and parsing requirements for 'classic
HTML', taking into account legacy implementations; the Group will not assume
that an SGML parser is used for 'classic HTML'.
The Group will monitor implementation of and conformance to the HTML
specification, construct test suites, and from them produce interoperability
reports.
The Group may hold Workshops, Interoperability Meetings, and other events as
required to fulfill its mission.
Data and canvas are reasonable areas of work for the group. On the one hand, they elaborate areas touched on in HTML4. On the other
hand, these elaborations are much deeper than the features of HTML4,
but also they form separate subsystems, and these subsystems have
strong overlaps with other design areas.
It is important that:
the design be modular;
the specifications be kept modular;
the communities of expertise of the respective fields (graphics and data) be involved in the design process.
Success Criteria
The HTML Working Group's work will be considered a success if there are
multiple independent complete and interoperable implementations of its
deliverable that are widely used.
Production of stable documents addressing the work items listed in the Deliverables section.
Test suites for each deliverable with conformance criteria
Availability of multiple, independent, interoperable implementations of
each deliverable with conformance criteria;, as demonstrated by an
implementation report (summarizing implementation status against the
relevant test suite) for each testable class of product, including user
agents
Availability of authoring tools and validation tools.
User community and industry adoption of the group deliverables.
Deliverables
New publications and Milestones
There is a single specification deliverable for the HTML Working Group, the
HTML specification, a platform-neutral and device-independent design with the
following items in scope:
A language evolved from HTML4 for describing the semantics of documents
and applications on the World Wide Web. This will be a complete
specification, not a delta
specification.
An extensible, serialized form of such a language, using XML.
A serialized form of such a language using a defined, non-XML syntax
compatible with the 'classic HTML' parsers of existing Web browsers.
Document Object Model (DOM) interfaces providing APIs for such a
language.
Forms and common UI widgets such as progress bars, datagrids, menus, and
other controls.
APIs for the manipulation of linked media.
Editing APIs and user-driven WYSIWYG editing features.
The following is a non-restrictive list of the
documents that are part of the deliverables of the Working Group:
The HTML WG is encouraged to provide a mechanism to permit independently
developed vocabularies such as Internationalization Tag Set (ITS), Ruby, and
RDFa to be mixed into HTML documents. Whether this occurs through the
extensibility mechanism of XML, whether it is also allowed in the classic HTML
serialization, and whether it uses the DTD and Schema modularization
techniques, is for the HTML WG to determine.
The following features are expected to be obtained by integrating
deliverables of the Web APIs Working Group. They
are listed here so that they may be developed in the case where the Web APIs
Working Group is not able to produce the specifications.
Data storage APIs.
Networking APIs for server-push, asynchronous two-way client-server
communication, peer-to-peer communication, and client-side cross-domain
communication.
Note that some of the features mentioned above may be obtained by
integrating deliverables of the Web APIs Working Group.
Other Deliverables
The Group will create a comprehensive test suite for
the HTML specification.
The Group will ensure thatvalidation tools are
available, possibly from third parties, for the HTML specification. Validation
does not mean DTD validation; validation using schemas (such as W3C XML Schema,
RelaxNG, Schematron) and validation which is tolerant of extensions in other
namespaces (for example using NVDL) is encouraged, as well as automated
checking of items from the specification prose.
The Group will monitor, track, and encourage implementation of HTML, both
during Candidate Recommendation and afterwards, to encourage adoption.
Milestones
Milestones
Note: The group will document significant
changes from this initial schedule on the group home page.
The following is a list of known dependencies and liaisons with other W3C
groups at the time this charter was written. Liaison with other W3C groups can
take advantage of a broad range of mechanisms such as cross membership, reviews
of drafts produced by other groups, joint meetings etc., and whenever
appropriate, the HTML Working Group will also coordinate with groups not listed
here.
HTML will integrate APIs developed by this Working Group
Forms Task Force
The HTML WG and the Forms Working Group will
work together in this Task Force to ensure that the new HTML forms and
the new XForms Transitional have architectural consistency and
that document authors can transition between them
The Hypertext Coordination Group is the primary place for the HTML
Working Group for coordination with other Working Groups within the W3C.
The Chair will participate in the regular Hypertext Coordination Group
meetings and ensure that reviews between Working Groups are planned and
carried out so as to meet requirements for deliverables and
deadlines.
Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG)
The HTML Working Group will actively pursue convergence with WHATWG,
encouraging open participation within the bounds of the W3C patent policy
and available resources.
Participation
To be successful, the HTML Working Group is expected to have active
participation of a diverse community for its duration. If fewer than three
implementors (i.e., browser vendors) are participating in the Working Group,
its charter should be re-examined by the W3C.
The co-chairs and specification Editors are expected to contribute one to
two days per week towards the Working Group. There is no minimum requirement
for other Participants. The Team Contact is expected to spend 0.5FTE for the
duration of the Working Group, which will be supplemented by other members of
the W3C team (management, communications, systems support) in order to support
participation by a large community.
W3C Members may join the Working Group using the regular W3C process.
The HTML Working Group also welcomes participation from non-Members. This
may take the form of questions and comments on the mailing list or IRC channel,
for which there is no formal requirement, or technical submissions for
consideration, for which the participant must agree to Royalty-Free licensing
under the W3C Patent Policy.
Communication
This group primarily conducts its technical work on a Public mailing list public-html. It is
referred to in the rest of this document as the Working Group mailing
list.
The www-html
mailing list remains available for general discussion of HTML, including topics
outside the scope of this Working Group.
Information about the group (deliverables, participants, face-to-face
meetings, teleconferences, etc.) will be available from the HTML Working Group home page.
Decision Policy
As explained in the Process Document (section 3.3), this group will
seek to make decisions when there is consensus. We expect that typically, an
editor makes an initial proposal, which is refined in discussion with Working
Group members and other reviewers, and consensus emerges with little formal
decision-making. However, if a decision is necessary for timely progress, but
after due consideration of different opinions, consensus is not achieved, the
Chair should put a question (allowing for remote, asynchronous participation
using, for example, email and/or web-based survey techniques) and record a
decision and any objections, and consider the matter resolved, at least until
new information becomes available.
This charter is written in accordance with Section 3.4, Votes of the W3C
Process Document and includes no voting procedures beyond what the Process
Document requires.
Patent Policy
This Working Group operates under the W3C Patent Policy (5 February
2004 Version). To promote the widest adoption of Web standards, W3C seeks to
issue Recommendations that can be implemented, according to this policy, on a
Royalty-Free basis.
This charter for the HTML Working Group has been created according to section 6.2 of the Process Document. In the event of a conflict
between this document or the provisions of any charter and the W3C Process, the
W3C Process shall take precedence.