This charter is written in accordance with the W3C Process, section 4.2.2 (Working Group and Interest Group Charters).
This charter supercedes the previous XForms WG Charter
The XForms Working Group is being rechartered with the goal of continuing to develop specifications to cover all aspects of forms on the Web. The mission of this Working Group is to continue W3C's work on the next generation of Web forms. There has been a strong positive industry reaction to XForms 1.0: there were at least seventeen known implementations before it even reached Candidate Recommendation; this indicates a strong acceptance of the need for the facilities that XForms provides.
A key idea is separating the user interface and presentation from the logic and model, allowing the same form to be used on a wide variety of devices such as voice browsers, handhelds, desktops and even paper. XForms allows much more checking and calculation to be done on the client, before the form is submitted to the server, providing the user with a much better experience, and reducing the need for repeated client-server cycles. XForms brings the benefits of XML to Web forms, transferring form data as XML. XForms reduces the need for scripting, and makes it easier to achieve the desired layout of form fields without having to resort to using nested tables etc.
The Working Group's specifications should be implementable on a royalty-free basis, see section 13 for details.
Work on XForms is restricted to fulfilling the requirements for the next generation of Web forms; to finish work on the XForms 1.0 Specification, release an XForms 1.0 testsuite, maintain the future XForms 1.0 Recommendation and work on the next version of XForms. The scope includes liaison with other related W3C groups and activities, as described below, for instance to ensure that XForms meets W3C goals for accessibility and internationalization, and to show how XForms can be effectively integrated with other W3C specifications.
The XForms Working Group is expected to advance the XForms 1.0
specification to W3C Recommendation status and the next version of XForms
specification to W3C Recommendation status.
The Working Group has the following deliverables:
The XForms Working Group will coordinate its work with other W3C Working Groups, see section 9 below.
The initial work on the next version of XForms will be to create a requirements documents, but here are some candidate additional functionalities that it might address:
Large forms, such as tax forms, may be too big to complete in a single session; this functionality would allow you to start filling in a form, save it and return later.
Current forms only have filling and reset functionalities; undo would be a useful extra functionality, but has ramifications for the processing model and how dependent calculations are processed.
Existing implementations are already adding proprietary methods of digitally signing XForms; clearly this needs to be defined in an interoperable way, but there are patent issues that need to be sidestepped.
XForms requires a certain minimum set of controls, but suggests other control that might be useful in certain cases. These advanced controls, such as tree-oriented selection for file-store like structures, might be a useful addition for a future version of XForms.
Current XForms offer a set of forms controls that are not extensible. It might be useful to allow the definition of new controls for existing and user-defined data types.
Wizards are multi-page forms that allow different paths through the questions depending on your previous answers. While XForms has support for this kind of interaction, it doesn't support validity tests on sub-forms, only on the complete form, so that it can be difficult to support the normal wizard behavior of only allowing you to proceed when you have correctly filled in the current sub-form.
A recurrent problem with current e-commerce sites is the mismatch between how the user is asked to fill in an address, and how the user normally expects the address to be formatted; a generalized solution to this would make life easier for website builders and users alike, as well as improving machine to machine communication. Similarly, there are several other advanced datatypes that could usefully be defined in a standard way.
XPath is a central part of XForms; a new version of Xpath is now being produced, and there should be an investigation of if and how it should be integrated with XForms.
XForms allows multi-step submissions. For instance filling in a postal code can cause a partial submission that fills in other parts of the address for you. This is clearly a candidate for integration into web services, and in a sense the missing part of the equation in web services: allowing the user to interact with them. Submission protocols for web services would need to be integrated into the XForms system.
The XForms Working Group will have the ability to separate or combine its deliverables to specify the previous functionalities.
This XForms Working Group renewal is planned to last for 24 months,
following its approval by W3C members. The Working Group is therefore likely
to continue its work until December 2004.
This includes a six month "life after Recommendation" phase.
The success of the XForms Working Group will be judged on how well it fulfills the requirements in terms of the deliverables and milestones set out below. Of particular note, is the need to ensure that the new approach to forms is consistent and easily integrated with W3C's approach to the protection of personal information collected by forms.
See section 7 for the timeline for each of the planned specifications.
By default, all documents under development by the Working Group are available to W3C Members from the group's web page. Selected documents will be made publically available via the W3C's technical reports page after approval from W3C management. The types of documents (Notes, Working Drafts etc.) are defined by the W3C Process.
Documents must have at least one editor and one or more contributors. Documents should have a date by which they will be declared stable. Any remaining issues at this date will be described in the document to avoid delaying its wider release.
This is a provisional list of milestones for the deliverables identified in section 3, and liable to change. The XForms Working Group will be tasked with maintaining publically accessible information describing the documents under development and the schedule for their standardization.
A tentative schedule of face-to-face meetings and deliverables is given here:
Access to email discussions and to documents developed by the Working Group will be limited to W3C Members and Invited Experts, until released for publication by the joint agreement of the Working Group and the W3C management team. Working Group members are required to honor the confidentiality of the group's discussions and working documents, until such time that the work is publically released. Invited experts are bound by the W3C Invited Expert and Collaborators Agreement. Participants working for W3C Member organizations are bound by their contract with W3C.
This 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 www-forms@w3.org and archive shall be provided to encourage open discussion of the Working Group's proposals.
The XForms Working Group is expected to take into account technologies developed by other groups within W3C, and to advise them about the requirements for XForms and to ask them to review specifications prepared by the Working Group, covering proposals for extensions to existing or future Web standards. At the time the charter was written, the following ongoing W3C activities are concerned:
The archived (member-only) mailing list w3c-forms@w3.org is the primary means of discussion within the group.
Certain topics need coordination with external groups. The Chair and the Working Group can agree to discuss these topics on a public mailing list. The archived mailing list www-forms@w3.org is used for public discussion of W3C proposals for XForms, and Working Group members are encouraged to subscribe. As a precaution against spam you must be subscribed in order to send a message to the list. To subscribe send a message with the word subscribe in the subject line to www-forms-request@w3.org.The Working Group is expected to track discussions on this list and to respond appropriately, as a commitment to public accountability.
A least 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. Additional phone conferences may be scheduled as necessary on specific topics.
Face to face meetings are to be arranged 3 to 4 times a year. Meeting
details are made available on the W3C Member Calendar and from the Working
Group page.
The Working Group may also organize public Workshops for specific needs,
which will be announced on www-forms@w3.org.
The XForms Activity maintains public pages on the W3C website to describe the status of work and pointers to the Working Group, charter, Activity statement, and email archives.
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 are restricted in access to W3C members and invited experts.
The Group works by consensus. In the event of failure to achieve
consensus, the Chair may resort to a vote as described in the W3C Process Document.
The XForms Working Group is chaired by Steven Pemberton from W3C..
The W3C staff contact, and activity lead will be Thierry Michel.
Requirements for meeting attendance and timely response are described in the W3C Process document. Participation (meetings, reviewing, and writing drafts) is expected to consume time amounting to one 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 publically available.
W3C Members may also offer to review documents produced by other groups, specially when they are in Last Call, for consistency with XForms. The only participation requirement is to provide the review comments by the agreed-to date.
Requirements for meeting attendance and timely response are described in
the W3C
Process document.
Invited experts are subject to the same requirement for information
disclosure as are required of W3C Members.
The W3C team is responsible for the mailing lists, public and Working
Group pages, for the posting of meeting minutes, and for liaison with the W3C
communications staff for the publication of working drafts. W3C team members
are expected to adopt the same requirements for meeting attendance, timely
response and information disclosure as are required of W3C Members.
The W3C staff contact is expected to devote 40% of his time to this
Activity.
The W3C chair is expected to devote 25% of his time to this Activity.
W3C promotes an open working environment. Whenever possible, technical
decisions should be made unencumbered by intellectual property right (IPR)
claims.
This is a Royalty Free Working Group, as described in W3C's Current Patent
Practice.
Working Group participants disclose patent claims by sending email to patent-issues@w3.org; please see Current Patent
Practice for more information about disclosures.
Patent disclosures relevant to this specification may be found on the XForms Working Group's patent disclosure page in conformance with W3C policy.