The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is an important part of modern computing infrastructure and is found in areas as diverse as government purchase contracts, aircraft navigation systems, documentation, ebooks, historical text transcriptions and much more.
XML adoption continues to increase; its importance in the publishing industry comes from the possibility to produce multiple output formats from the same set of XML documents, which in turn can be constrained in form and content using XML Schema. The Web of Things is using Efficient XML Interchange as an embeddable low-overhead communication format.
Recent W3C work in the XML Activity has also improved support for JSON and for working with the Open Web Platform, and that work is expected to continue.
A new version of XProc, the pipeline language, was previously proposed, and includes improved support for the needs of publishers, government and corporate users as well as incorporating feedback from users of the first verison. The XProc Working Group is already chartered to do this work, but the charter is here extended to match the other XML charters. This extension will give the Working Group time to reach a Recommendation. The previous charter did not include a final Recommendation in order to keep the charter's duration to the usual two-year limit.
XML is now too far down in the computing infrastructure stack to be changed significantly, but it is also important to make sure that any errors are corrected. The XML Core Working Group continues the careful but central role of maintaining XML itself, along with other core specifications such as XInclude.
The XML Activity is to be extended by two years. The XForms Working Group will join the XML Activity, newly re-formed from a Community Group.
The following Working Groups will become public in this rechartering:
The XML Coordination Group has been inactive for over a year, and therefore will close as of this rechartering.
It is proposed that the XML Activity last through the end of May 2017. See also the summary of the XML Activity table below for details per Working Group.
The resources required include:
The individual Working Group charters indicate the respective Team Contact resources. Approximately 0.85 FTE of Team resources are currently allocated to this Activity, divided between two people.
| Group | Chair | Team Contact | FTE | Charter |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Efficient XML Interchange Working Group | Takuki Kamiya | Carine Bournez, Liam Quin | 25% | Chartered until 31 May 2017 |
| XML Processing Working Group | Norman Walsh | Liam Quin | 5% | Chartered until 31 May 2017 |
| XML Core Working Group | Paul Grosso, Norman Walsh | Liam Quin | 5% | Chartered until 31 May 2017 |
| XML Query Working Group | Jim Melton, Andrew Coleman | Liam Quin | 25% | Chartered until 31 May 2017 |
| XForms Working Group | Steven Pemberton | Liam Quin | 5% | Chartered until 31 May 2017 |
| XSLT Working Group | Sharon Adler | Carine Bournez, Liam Quin | 20% | Chartered until 31 May 2017 |