HTML working group charter

Note. This charter has expired. Please refer to the new charter.

This charter is written in accordance with section 3.2.3 of the W3C Process.

Mission Statement

To fulfill the promise of XML for applying XHTML to a wide variety of platforms including mobile, television, desktops and hardcopy. To assist W3C's leadership role in advancing the baseline for Web browsers to support rich Web pages that combine W3C's work on areas such as math, scalable vector graphics, synchronized multimedia, and forms.

Scope

This will be the third time that the W3C has chartered a working group for HTML. The scope of this charter is to see through to completion, the transition to XML. This includes finishing work on modularizing XHTML for use with mobile, television and other platforms. This work has hitherto focussed on using XML Document Type Definitions (DTDs) to provide a formal description for modules. Further work is now needed to express XHTML Modularization in XML Schemas.

DTDs are mature, and there is a broad pool of experience that can be used as guidance for creating maintainable modular DTDs. By comparison, Schemas are new, and it will take some time to build up the skills needed for creating easy to maintain schemas for XHTML Modularization. It may be appropriate to use a approach where an easier to maintain representation is transformed into the XML Schema representation.

The W3C Recommendation for XHTML 1.0 has provided a starting point for transitioning the Web from SGML-based HTML, but progress will be limited while XHTML is reliant on the use of "text/html" for delivering content to user agents. The next step will be to register an Internet Media Type for XHTML following the guidelines set out by the W3C-IETF liaison group studying Internet Media types for applications of XML.

W3C's work on areas such as math, scalable vector graphics, synchronized multimedia, voice browsing and forms holds great promise for a new generation of Web pages. Work is now needed on combining these with XHTML, and for W3C to take a leadership role in promoting the resultant document types as the new baseline for browser interoperability. The HTML working group will need to collaborate with other working groups to assist W3C in reaching this goal.

The need for liaison with other related W3C groups and activities is described below. Of particular note, is the Hypertext Coordination Group, which provides a forum for managing cross working group activities, for instance, reviewing specifications developed by other groups. There is an increasing need for technical collaboration between groups for joint work on requirements, specifications and test suites. One way for this to occur is via small subgroups, set up for a strictly limited time and scope, which report back to the respective working groups.

Success Criteria

The success of the HTML working group will be judged on how well it fulfills the above objectives in terms of the deliverables and milestones set out below.

Duration

This group was planned to last for 18 months, following its approval by W3C members. The charter commenced in June 2000 and was originally supposed to expire in December 2001. It was extended by the Director's decision until June 2002 to finish remaining work.

Deliverables

In the following, the terms: Note, Working Draft, Candidate Recommendation, and Proposed Recommendation are defined in the W3C Process.

Release policy

A list of documents actively under consideration by the group, is to be maintained by the W3C staff contact under the direction of the working group chair. To add a document to the list, or to revise a document in the list, the draft should be sent to the chair and/or the group mailing list. The chair will decide on new/revised drafts in collaboration with the group, provided the document falls within the scope of work items for the group. As documents stabilize, they will be released as W3C Working Drafts.

Openness Policies

The Working Group Charter shall be publicly accessible on the W3C Web site, along with descriptions of the goals and current status of the Working Group's proposals, plus guidelines, tutorials and other promotional materials.  A public mailing list and archive shall be provided to encourage open discussion of the Working Group's proposals. The Working Group is expected to track discussions on this list and to respond appropriately, as a commitment to public accountability.

To ensure the freedom of discussion sometimes necessary for an open and fruitful exchange of views, the e-mail archives and minutes of meetings of the Working Group will be restricted to W3C members and invited experts.

Relationship to other W3C forums

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.

Hypertext Coordination Group
The Hypertext Coordination Group has the responsibility for ensuring that reviews between working groups are planned and carried out so as to meet requirements for deliverables and deadlines.
XML Schema Working Group
The HTML working group does not address changes to XML syntax. New versions of HTML will use XML 1.0 with the addition of XML namespaces. The HTML working group will use XML Schemas as a formal means to describe XHTML Modularization.
Document Object Model (DOM)
HTML content will be accessible from the XML Document Object Model.
Web Accessability Initiative
The HTML working group will cooperate with the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) to ensure HTML meets W3C accessibility goals.
Internationalization Working Group
The HTML working group will cooperate with this group to ensure HTML provides effective support for internationalization.
XLink Working Group
The HTML working group will review the proposals of the XML Linking working group for internal and external hyperlinking for possible application in future revisions to HTML.
CC/PP Working Group
The HTML working group will cooperate with this group to develop an RDF vocabulary for XHTML modularization for use with CC/PP.
CSS Working Group and
XSL Working Group
The work of the HTML working group will be coordinated with these groups on presentation issues.
XForms Working Group
The HTML working group will cooperate closely with this group to ensure a smooth transition to next generation Web forms.
Math Working Group
The HTML working group will cooperate with this group to ensure that math can be seamlessly integrated with HTML.
Synchronized Multimedia Working Group
The HTML working group will cooperate with this group to enable HTML documents to include synchronized multimedia components, and to enable the use of HTML as an integral component of multimedia presentations.
Scalable Vector Graphics Working Group
The HTML working group will cooperate with this group to ensure that HTML can be seamlessly integrated with the scalable vector graphics capabilities being developed by this group.
Mobile Access Interest Group
The HTML working group will cooperate with this group to ensure that HTML meets the requirements for mobile access.
Television and the Web Interest Group
The HTML working group will cooperate with this group to ensure that HTML meets the requirements identified by this group for the use of HTML by television sets.

Resources Required

Communication Mechanisms

Face to face meetings

The Working Group gathers for face-to-face discussions at least once every 6 months and preferably 4 times a year. Meeting details will be made available on the W3C Member Calendar and from the Working Group page.

Email

The archived member-only mailing list w3c-html-wg@w3.org is the primary means of discussion within the group.

The archived mailing list www-html@w3.org is used for public discussion of the new generation of HTML, and Working Group members are encouraged to subscribe. The Working Group is expected to track discussions on this list and to respond appropriately, as a commitment to public accountability.

Phone

A weekly one-hour phone conference will be held. The exact details, dates and times will be published in advance on the Working Group page. The Chair is expected to post an agenda in advance of the conference call.

Working Group Web Page

The Working Group shall maintain a Web page that shows the list of active documents, the meeting schedule, and links to email archives, meeting minutes, and the list of Working Group participants etc. These pages will be restricted in access to W3C members and invited experts.

Voting Mechanisms

The Group works by consensus. In the event of failure to achieve consensus, the Group may resort to a vote as described in the W3C Process. Each Member company which has at least one Group member in good standing may vote. There is one vote per W3C Member company. Votes are held by email to allow all participants a chance to vote; there is a two week voting period followed by a period of two working days for the announcement of the result. W3C staff and invited experts do not vote; however in the event of a tie the chair has a casting vote. If the issue is solved by consensus during the voting period, the vote is cancelled.

Participation

by W3C Members

Requirements for meeting attendance and timely response are described in the W3C Process. Participation (meetings, reviewing and writing drafts) is expected to consume time amounting 1 day per week for the lifetime of the group. Working group participants are required not to disclose information obtained during participation, until that information is publicly available.

W3C Members may also offer to review one or more working drafts from the group for clarity, consistency, technical merit, fitness for purpose and conformance with other W3C specifications. The only participation requirement is to provide the review comments by the agreed-to date.

by invited experts

As decided on a case by case basis, invited experts may attend a single meeting or a series; they may in some cases be subscribed to the Group mailing list. For the duration of their participation, invited experts are encouraged to adopt the same requirements for meeting attendance and timely response as are required of W3C Members.

Invited experts are subject to the same requirement for information disclosure as are required of W3C Members.

by W3C Team

W3C team will ensure that the mailing lists and Group page are adequately maintained and that public Working Drafts are made available on the Technical Reports page. W3C team will arrange to take minutes at teleconferences and face to face meetings and post these to the Group mailing list and to the Group page.

A W3C team member will provide liaison between non-team document editors and the W3C team; including posting revisions of Working Drafts to the Group page.

W3C team are expected to adopt the same requirements for meeting attendance, timely response and information disclosure as are required of W3C Members.

Previous Versions of HTML

XHTML 1.0
XHTML 1.0 was issued as a recommendation by W3C in January 2000. XHTML 1.0 is a reformulation of HTML 4.01 as an XML 1.0 application, and includes three DTDs corresponding to the ones defined by HTML 4.01. The semantics of the elements and their attributes are defined in the W3C Recommendation for HTML 4.01. These semantics provide the foundation for future extensibility of XHTML. Compatibility with existing HTML user agents is possible by following a small set of guidelines.
HTML 4.01
HTML 4.01 was issued as a recommendation by W3C in December 1999. It fixes bugs in the HTML 4.0 specification, which for instance, omitted the name attribute on the img and form elements. HTML 4.01 defines the semantics and datatypes for HTML.
HTML 4.0
HTML 4.0 was issued as a recommendation by W3C in December 1997. It includes support for style sheets, internationalization, accessibility to Web pages for people with disabilities, frames, richer tables and forms.
HTML 3.2
W3C's previous recommendation for HTML represented the consensus on HTML features for 1996. HTML 3.2 added widely deployed features such as tables, applets and text flow around images, superscripts and subscripts while providing backwards compatibility with HTML 2.0.
HTML 2.0
HTML 2.0 (RFC 1866) was developed by the IETF's HTML working group, which closed in 1996. It set the standard for core HTML features based upon current practice in 1994.

Dave Raggett <dsr@w3.org> Last modified: 23rd August 2002