W3C Workshop on The Future of Offline Web Applications 5 November 2011
Redwood City, CA, USA

Program Committee

The Workshop report is now available

Call For Participation

Background

The Web has rapidly evolved into a platform suitable for applications that exhibit a level of richness and interaction that could barely be envisioned 20 years ago. Word processors, email clients, navigation systems, and games are just a small sample of applications that are now a regular part of the Web experience, but there are many types of applications that are difficult to produce using Web technologies. In order to facilitate these complex applications move into the Web, additional functionality is required from the Open Web Platform.

Offline use of Web applications is one of the key missing elements from the Web platform that application developers require. The current fragmentation in this solution space is creating confusion among would-be WebApp developers and organizations who would otherwise invest in the Open Web Platform.

The solutions thus far include many proprietary approaches as well as standards based solutions such as HTML5 Application Cache and W3C Widgets. Of these two standard mechanisms, Widgets requires developers to explicitly package a Web application a priori whilst HTML5 Application Cache specifies a mechanism for user agents to precache assets from a traditionally hosted Web application. Both of theses approaches have their benefits and drawbacks and both have multiple implementations from which we can draw experience. This workshop will examine requirements that can be derived from the implementor and developer experiences, with the goal of informing future standardization efforts.

Goals and Scope

The goal of this workshop is to identify a clear path forward for innovation in the Open Web Platform related to offline Web application invocation and use.

As mentioned above, the World Wide Web Consortium has already developed standards to facilitate the development of off-line Web applications:

This workshop will provide browser vendors, Web applications developers and the Working Group members involved in the standards an opportunity to present position papers on this topic and then provide a forum in which a suitable path forward can be developed.

Participation Requirements

All participants are required to submit a position paper by 30 September 2011. W3C membership is not required to participate in this workshop.

Topics for the position papers may include, but are not limited to:

The total number of participants will be limited. To ensure diversity, a limit might be imposed on the maximum number of participants per organization.

Instructions for how to register will be sent to submitters of accepted position papers. These instructions will also indicate a possible limit on the maximum number of participants per organization.

Workshop sessions and documents will be in English. Position papers, presentations, minutes and the workshop report will be public.

There is no fee to participate.

Expression of Interest

To help the organizers plan the workshop: If you wish to participate, please as soon as possible send a message to team-uwa-review@w3.org with a short (one paragraph) "expression of interest" stating:

Note: Sending that expression of interest does not mean that you are registered for the workshop. It is still necessary to send a position paper, which then must be considered for acceptance by the Program Committee.

Position Papers

You may submit a position paper by email to team-uwa-review@w3.org.

You paper must meet the following criteria:

Based on a review of all submitted position papers, the Program Committee will select the most relevant and invite the submitters of those papers to the Workshop. From among all accepted papers, the program committee will choose a small number of papers judged most appropriate for fostering discussion, and ask the authors of those papers to give short presentations about them at the Workshop. After the workshop, those presentations will then be published on the workshop Papers page.

Important dates

Date Event
9 September 2011 Call for Participation issued
30 September 2011 EXTENDED! 12 October 2011 Deadline for position papers
15 October 2011 Acceptance notification sent
20 October 2011 Program released
28 October 2011 Deadline for Registration
5 November 2011 Workshop

Workshop Organization

Workshop sessions and documents will be in English.

Chairs

Program Committee

Venue

Vodafone's Offices at:

275 Shoreline Drive
Redwood City, CA, USA

This is approximately 30 minutes drive from Santa Clara, where the Technical Plenary and Advisory Committee week is hosted.

Deliverables

Position papers, agenda, accepted presentations, and report will be published online, and linked from this page.