Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Working Group Charter

The mission of the Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Working Group is to develop and maintain SVG.

Join the SVG Working Group.

Start date 2 August 2017
End date 31 January 2019
Charter extension See Change History.
Chairs Dirk Schulze, Adobe
Team Contacts Chris Lilley (0.1 FTE)
Meeting Schedule Teleconferences: topic-specific calls may be held as needed.
Face-to-face: No face to face meetings are planned for this group.

Scope

Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is a language that allows authors and users to describe graphics in a way which is scalable to different device resolutions, acessible, and animatable.

The SVG WG develops a single deliverable, the SVG specification. It consists of the following, somewhat independent technologies, all of which are in scope for the SVG Working Group:

As a primary focus in this charter period, the group will concentrate on the stabilisation and interoperability testing of the core SVG 2 specification. As part of that testing, features which are in the reference draft of SVG2 and which do not meet the stability and interoperability requirements for a Proposed Recommendation may be moved to separate specification modules, work on which would remain in scope, but at a lower priority.

As a secondary focus, the group may address modules for new graphical features for SVG, only once SVG 2 is at the Proposed Recommendation stage and once there is broad consensus on adding each such feature to the Web Platform. A requirements document will be used to collect together these features.

Success Criteria

In order to advance to Proposed Recommendation, each specification is expected to have at least two independent implementations of each of feature defined in the specification.

Each specification should contain a section detailing any known security or privacy implications for implementers, Web authors, and end users.

Testing plans for each specification should be developed, starting from the earliest drafts.

Each specification should contain a section on accessibility that describes the benefits and impacts, including ways specification features can be used to address them, and recommendations for maximising accessibility in implementations.

Modules that reach W3C Recommendation, are considered successful when all of the following are present:

  • Production of stable documents addressing the work items listed in the Deliverables section.
  • Test suites for each module with conformance criteria.
  • Availability of multiple, independent, interoperable implementations of each feature with conformance criteria in each deliverable; as demonstrated by an implementation report (summarizing implementation status against the relevant test suite) for each testable class of product, including user agents.
  • Deployment on multiple types of platform.
  • User community and industry adoption of the group deliverables.

Deliverables

More detailed milestones and updated publication schedules are available on the group publication status page.

Draft state indicates the state of the deliverable at the time of the charter approval. Expected completion indicates when the deliverable is projected to become a Recommendation, or otherwise reach a stable state.

The SVG WG will follow a test as you commit approach to specification development, for specifications in CR or above.

Normative Specification

The Working Group will deliver the following W3C normative specifications:

Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 2

This specification defines the core SVG language, as currently implemented in Web browsers. It includes a definition of how ARIA is used in SVG. This specification updates SVG 1.1 to include HTML5-compatible parsing, removes the XLink namespace, and makes many small improvements in clarity and precision in the specification.

Draft state: Candidate Recommendation

Expected completion: Q2 2018

Adopted Working Draft: Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 2, 15 Sept 2016.

Reference Draft: Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 2, 15 Sept 2016. Exclusion period began 16 September 2016; Exclusion period ended 14 November 2016.

Produced under Working Group Charter: SVG WG, 2014-2016.

SVG Accessibility API Mappings

This specification defines the mapping between (non-ARIA) SVG features and OS platform accessibility application programming interfaces.

Draft state: Working Draft

Expected completion: Q3 2018

Adopted Working Draft: SVG Accessibility API Mappings, 17 April 2014.

Reference Draft: SVG Accessibility API Mappings, 26 February 2015. Exclusion period began 26 February 2015; Exclusion period ended 26 July 2015.

Produced under Working Group Charter: SVG WG, 2014-2016.

Note: the SVG Integration specification, which was once a separate document, is now a chapter of the SVG2 specification and is thus covered by the above deliverable.

Note: two specifications which were previously joint deliverables with the ARIA WG are now sole deliverables of the ARIA WG, see below.

Other Deliverables

  • Test suite and implementation report for the SVG2 specification, concentrating on changes relative to SVG 1.1 Second Edition

    • Other non-normative documents may be created, subject to available time, such as:

    • Use case and requirement documents;
    • Primer or Best Practice documents to support web developers when designing applications.

Timeline

  • Sep 2017: Updated CR of SVG2
  • Oct 2017: Updated WD of SVG-AAM
  • Nov 2017: Initial testsuite for new SVG2 features
  • Feb 2018: CR of SVG-AAM
  • June 2018: Proposed Recommendation for SVG2
  • July 2018: Proposed Recommendation for SVG-AAM
  • July 2018: WG Note, Requirements for Post-SVG2 features

Coordination

For all specifications, this Working Group will seek horizontal review for accessibility, internationalization, performance, privacy, and security with the relevant Working and Interest Groups, and with the TAG. Invitation for review must be issued during each major standards-track document transition, including FPWD and at least 3 months before CR, and should be issued when major changes occur in a specification.

Additional technical coordination with the following Groups will be made, per the W3C Process Document:

W3C Groups

CSS Working Group
Coordinate on integration of SVG features and properties into CSS.
Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) Working Group

Coordinate on SVG and graphics-related ARIA deliverables. In particular, members of the SVG WG are strongly encouraged to also join the ARIA WG to enable timely progress on the following ARIA deliverables related to SVG:

WAI-ARIA Graphics Module
This specification defines semantic roles specific to web graphics, for use with WAI-ARIA.
Graphics Accessibility API Mappings
This specification defines the mapping between the WAI-ARIA Graphics Module and OS platform accessibility application programming interfaces.
Accessible Platform Architectures Working Group
Coordinate on accessible SVG.
Spatial Data on the Web Working Group
Coordinate on SVG used for geographic and spatial data, such as maps.
Web Application Security Working Group
Coordinate on security of SVG.
Web Platform Working Group
Coordinate on integration of SVG and HTML, and on compatibility with the Canvas API specifications.
Publishing Working Group
Coordinate on reading system and publisher support for SVG.

Participation

To be successful, this Working Group is expected to have 6 or more active participants for its duration, including representatives from the key implementors of this specification, and active Editors and Test Leads for each specification. The Chairs, specification Editors, and Test Leads are expected to contribute half of a working day per week towards the Working Group. There is no minimum requirement for other Participants.

The group encourages questions, comments and issues on its public mailing lists and document repositories, as described in Communication.

The group also welcomes non-Members to contribute technical submissions for consideration upon their agreement to the terms of the W3C Patent Policy.

Communication

Technical discussions for this Working Group are conducted in public: the meeting minutes from teleconferences will be archived for public review, and technical discussions and issue tracking will be conducted in a manner that can be both read and written to by the general public. Working Drafts and Editor's Drafts of specifications will be developed on a public repository, and may permit direct public contribution requests. The meetings themselves are not open to public participation, however.

Information about the group (including details about deliverables, issues, actions, status, participants, and meetings) will be available from the SVG Working Group home page.

Most SVG Working Group teleconferences will focus on discussion of particular specifications, and will be conducted on an as-needed basis.

This group primarily conducts its technical work on the public mailing list www-svg@w3.org (archive) and on GitHub issues. The public is invited to review, discuss and contribute to this work.

The group may use a Member-confidential mailing list for administrative purposes and, at the discretion of the Chair and members of the group, for member-only discussions in special cases when a participant requests such a discussion.

Decision Policy

This group will seek to make decisions through consensus and due process, per the W3C Process Document (section 3.3). Typically, an editor or other participant makes an initial proposal, which is then refined in discussion with members of the group and other reviewers, and consensus emerges with little formal voting being required.

However, if a decision is necessary for timely progress, but consensus is not achieved after careful consideration of the range of views presented, the Chair may call for a group vote, and record a decision along with any objections.

To afford asynchronous decisions and organizational deliberation, any resolution (including publication decisions) taken in a face-to-face meeting or teleconference will be considered provisional. A call for consensus (CfC) will be issued for all resolutions (for example, via email and/or web-based survey), with a response period from one week to 10 working days, depending on the chair's evaluation of the group consensus on the issue. If no objections are raised on the mailing list by the end of the response period, the resolution will be considered to have consensus as a resolution of the Working Group.

All decisions made by the group should be considered resolved unless and until new information becomes available, or unless reopened at the discretion of the Chair or the Director.

This charter is written in accordance with the W3C Process Document (Section 3.4, Votes), 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. For more information about disclosure obligations for this group, please see the W3C Patent Policy Implementation.

Licensing

This Working Group will use the W3C Software and Document license for all its deliverables.

About this Charter

This charter has been created according to section 5.2 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.

Charter History

The following table lists details of all changes from the initial charter, per the W3C Process Document (section 5.2.3):

Charter Period Start Date End Date Changes
Initial Charter 1998-07-24 2001-05-31 none
Rechartered 2001-06-10 2003-06-30 none
Rechartered 2003-10-07 2004-03-31 Switched to W3C Current Patent Practice
Rechartered 2004-12-20 2006-09-30 Switched to W3C Patent Policy
Charter Extension 2006-09-21 2007-10-01
Charter Extension 2007-11-26 2008-01-31
Rechartered 2008-04-16 2010-04-30 continue to develop SVG 1.2 and to maintain SVG 1.1
Charter Extension 2010-04-28 2010-07-30
Charter Extension 2010-10-04 2011-01-31
Charter Extension 2011-06-01 2011-07-31
Rechartered 2012-03-20 2014-03-31 Contains new deliverables...
Rechartered 2014-10-23 2016-10-31 zoom media feature, Motion Path, Accessibility and Web Performance joint work. removes the Graphics API and Tiles and Layering
Charter Extension 2016-11-02 2017-01-31
Rechartered 2017-08-02 2018-06-30 Restricted to Core SVG 2 and SVG Accessibility API Mappings. New features only after.
Charter Extension 2018-07-01 2018-11-30
Charter Extension 2018-12-14 2019-01-31