W3C

XHTML2 Working Group Charter

The mission of the XHTML2 Working Group, part of the HTML Activity, is to fulfill the promise of XML for applying XHTML to a wide variety of platforms with proper attention paid to internationalization, accessibility, device-independence, usability and document structuring. This mission includes providing an essential piece for supporting rich Web content that combines XHTML with other W3C work on areas such as math, scalable vector graphics, synchronized multimedia, and forms, in cooperation with other Working Groups.

Join the XHTML2 Working Group.

End date 31 December 2009
Confidentiality Proceedings are Public
Initial Chairs Roland Merrick, IBM; Steven Pemberton, W3C/CWI
Initial Team Contact
(FTE %: 25)
Steven Pemberton, W3C/CWI
Usual Meeting Schedule Teleconferences: Weekly
Face-to-face: 4 per year

Scope

The scope of this charter is to continue the XHTML2 work from the previous HTML WG charter to produce the accessible, semantic, next-generation XHTML2. This includes producing a new version of XML Events (to use DOM3 Events being produced by the Web APIs Working Group), producing a new Access Key module in cooperation with the WAI Working Groups, and finishing work on XHTML 2.0, which combines all the new modules into a single profile. This document type will include new features such as XForms and XML Events as replacements for legacy HTML/XHTML features that interfere with device independence, accessibility, and usability. Producing a new version of XHTML Modularization that includes all the new modules is also in scope.

Interoperable deployment of the deliverables listed below is critical for the success of XHTML: in order to ensure interoperable implementations, test suites need to be developed for the deliverables and implementations need to be tracked, tested and encouraged.

Success Criteria

The success of the XHTML2 Working Group will be judged on how well it fulfills the above objectives in terms of the deliverables and milestones set out below, and the deployment of its deliverables.

Deliverables

Technical Reports

The following existing deliverables are expected to become Recommendations (if they are not already) and to have errata actively maintained. The W3C Patent Policy Transition Procedure governs the policy that applies to these deliverables.

The following new deliverables will be created under the W3C Patent Policy:

Other Deliverables

For each Recommendation-track deliverable which has conformance criteria, the Working Group will maintain:

The Working group may create, or encourage the creation of, conversion tools to:

The Working Group will ensure that authoring and validation tools for XHTML 2 are available. Validation should not be construed in a DTD sense but should allow checking of multinamespace documents and partial checking for specific conformance criteria in the prose of the specifications.

One or more W3C Notes explaining the background to the language design, the alternatives considered, and why particular choices were made.

Milestones

Milestones
Note: The group will document significant changes from this initial schedule on the group home page.
Specification FPWD LC CR PR Rec
Accesskey module Nov 2006 Apr 2007 Sept 2007 Mar 2008 Jun 2008
XFrames Aug 2002 Apr 2007 Sept 2007 Mar 2008 Jun 2008
XML Events 2.0 Feb 2007 Sep 2007 Jan 2008 Jul 2008 Sep 2008
XHTML 2.0 Aug 2002 Sep 2007 Feb 2008 Jun 2008 Sep 2008
XHTML Basic 1.1 July 2006 Dec 2006 Mar 2007 June 2007 Aug 2007
RDFa Primer March 2006 Jul 2007 no conformance criteria Mar 2008 Jun 2008
RDFa module Nov 2006 Jul 2007 Sept 2007 Mar 2008 Jun 2008

Dependencies and Liaison

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 XHTML2 Working Group will also coordinate with groups not listed here.

Dependencies

Liaisons

Hypertext Coordination Group
The Hypertext Coordination Group is the primary place for the XHTML2 Working Group for coordination with other Working Groups within the W3C. The Chair will participate 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.
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group and Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) Working Group
The work of the XHTML2 Working Group will be coordinated with these groups on presentation issues.
Device Independence Working Group
The XHTML2 Working Group will cooperate with this group to ensure that XHTML2 meets the requirements for device independence. In particular, the Device Independent Authoring Language (DIAL) specification builds on XHTML 2.0
Internationalization Working Group
The XHTML2 Working Group will cooperate with this group to ensure that their specifications provide effective support for internationalization.
Math Interest Group
The XHTML2 Working Group will cooperate with this group to ensure that MathML can be seamlessly integrated with XHTML2.
Multimodal Interaction Working Group
The XHTML2 Working Group will cooperate with this group to ensure that XHTML2 and XML Events can be usable with multimodal interaction.
Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Working Group
The XHTML2 Working Group will cooperate with this group to ensure that XHTML can be seamlessly integrated with SVG. In particular, SVG Tiny 1.2 uses XML Events 1.0 and has requirements for XML Events 2.0
Voice Browser Working Group
The XHTML2 Working Group will cooperate with this group in the area of event handling, and cross-group issues on speech handling.
Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
The XHTML2 Working Group will cooperate with the Web Accessibility Initiative to ensure that the deliverables will satisfy accessibility requirements. Coordination with WAI will be primarily conducted through the Protocol and Formats Working Group, but direct coordination with other WAI groups, such as Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group and User Agent Accessibility Guidelines Working Group, will also be done when appropriate. In particular,the Accesskey module will be jointly developed with WAI.
HTML Working Group
The XHTML2 Working Group will cooperate with this group to ensure a smooth transition path from HTML to XHTML 2. This may include document conversion tools.
Forms Working Group
The XHTML2 Working Group will cooperate closely with this group to ensure a smooth transition to next generation Web forms.
XML Core Working Group
The XHTML2 Working Group does not address changes to XML syntax. The deliverables of the XHTML2 Working Group will conform to core XML technologies developed by the XML Core Working Group.
Compound Document Formats Working Group
The XHTML2 Working Group cooperates with this group to ensure that XHTML2 can be readily combined with other W3C specifications, and to ensure that XHTML Modularization addresses the necessary requirements.
Semantic Web Deployment Working Group
The XHTML2 Working Group will coordinate with this group in issues related to metadata and the Semantic Web, in particular on developing common solutions for representing metadata in RDF within an XHTML document.
Web APIs Working Group
For coordination on event and DOM architectures.
XML Coordination group
The XHTML2 WG will coordinate its spin-off technoilogies, useful for other CXML markup, by participating in the XML CG.

Relationship to External Groups

The XHTML2 Working Group endeavors to coordinate with external groups on issues of mutual importance. At the time of writing the groups being coordinated with were:

The International Press Telecommunications Council
On issues of metadata in XHTML2.
The Open Mobile Alliance (OMA)
For the purpose of converging XHTML Basic and XHTML Mobile Profile.

Furthermore, the XHTML2 Working Group expects to follow these W3C Recommendations:

Participation

To be successful, the XHTML2 Working Group is expected to have active participation for its duration. Effective participation to XHTML2 Working Group is expected to consume one work day per week for each participant; two days per week for Editors, Chair and Team Contact. The XHTML2 Working Group will allocate also the necessary resources for building Test Suites for each specification and for monitoring, testing and encouraging implementation of its specifications.

Participants are reminded of the Good Standing requirements of the W3C Process.

Communication

This group primarily conducts its technical work on a Public mailing list public-xhtml2@w3.org (archive), It is referred to in the rest of this document as the Working Group mailing list.

A Member-only mailing list, member-xhtml2@w3.org (archive) is available for administrative purposes such as liaison with Member-only Working Groups.

Information about the group (deliverables, participants, face-to-face meetings, teleconferences, etc.) is available from the XHTML2 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. When the Chair puts a question and observes dissent, after due consideration of different opinions, the Chair should record a decision (possibly after a formal vote) and any objections, and move on.

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.

For more information about disclosure obligations for this group, please see the W3C Patent Policy Implementation.

About this Charter

This charter for the XHTML2 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.

Please also see the previous HTML WG charter


Chris Lilley chris@w3.org

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