Web Platform Working Group Charter

The mission of the Web Platform Working Group is to continue the development of the HTML language and provide specifications that enable improved client-side application development on the Web, including application programming interfaces (APIs) for client-side development and markup vocabularies for describing and controlling client-side application behavior.

Join the Web Platform Working Group.

Start date	1 August 2017
End date	31 March 2019
Confidentiality	Proceedings are Public
Chairs	Marcos Caceres, Charles McCathie Nevile, Léonie Watson
Team Contacts (FTE %: 100)	Yves Lafon, Xiaoqian Wu
Usual Meeting Schedule	Teleconferences: There are generally not regular teleconferences. Topic-specific calls may be held up to once per week if needed. Face-to-face: we will meet during the W3C's annual Technical Plenary week; up to 2 other F2F meetings may be scheduled for the full group; Up to 4 meetings per year may be scheduled for subgroups working on specific topics. IRC: active participants, particularly editors, regularly use the group's IRC channel(s)

Background

The Web Platform Working Group was the result of merging the Web Applications Working Group and the HTML Working Group in 2015, with some deliverables moved to other groups. The work boundaries between the two Working Groups had narrowed over the years, given that it is difficult to introduce new HTML elements and attributes without looking at their implications at the API level.

The initial experiment in merging the group for 12 months was followed by an 18 month extension, removing some deliverables considered unlikely to progress within that period, and including others with a specific requirement that there is a prospect of success before work will continue within the Working Group.

This charter update adds some new deliverables, removes some to split the work into a separate group and extends the group by a further 6 months.

Scope

The group will:

Continue the development of the HTML language, and associated APIs.
Ensure that developers can use Web technologies to build client-side applications that rely on Web engines as application run-time environments.
Provide generic and consistent interoperability and integration among all target formats, such as HTML, CSS, and SVG.
Continue to define normative requirements for applications that process HTML resources, including browsers and other interactive user agents, authoring tools, content management tools, and conformance checkers.
Ensure Web applications can work across a wide range of devices and among a broad diversity of users, in particular addressing issues of accessibility, device independence, internationalization, privacy, and security.

Success Criteria

The group will be considered successful if it produces

Stable versions of specifications addressing the work items listed in the Milestones section, with normative conformance requirements for implementation,
A test suite for each deliverable, sufficiently broad to demonstrate interoperability,
and Implementation reports for deliverables showing adoption,

resulting in the ready availability of multiple, independent, interoperable implementations of each deliverable, including in browsers, authoring and validation tools, and usage on the Web.

If participants from fewer than three distinct browser-engine projects are participating in the group, its charter should be re-examined by the W3C.

Deliverables

Recommendation-Track Deliverables

The working group will work on the following W3C specifications:

Database and Offline Application APIs

A set of objects and interfaces for client-side database functionality. For more details, see the Web Platform WG Database API page. The following Database APIs are deliverables under this charter:

Indexed Database API (2nd Edition) - Editors' Copy: An API for a database of records holding simple values and hierarchical objects

Document Object Model (DOM)

A set of specifications defining objects and interfaces for interaction with a document's tree model. These deliverables include:

An update for DOM4: DOM defines a platform-neutral model for events and node trees.
DOM Parsing and Serialization: Parsing markup into a DOM, and serialize for export, an HTML or XML fragment or document.
Intersection Observers: A specification that gives authors information about the visibility of particular elements
UI Events - Editors' Copy: Events typically implemented by interactive user agents for user interaction such as mouse and keyboard input.
UIEvents KeyboardEvent code Values - Editors' Copy: Identifying the physical key being pressed by the user.
UIEvents KeyboardEvent key Values - Editors' Copy: Information about the character generated by key events.

Editing APIs

Clipboard API and events - Editors' Copy: Expose common clipboard operations such as cut, copy and paste to Web Applications.
Selection API - Editors' Copy: APIs for selection, which allows users and authors to select a portion of a document or specify a point of interest for copy, paste, and other editing operations.
Static Range: A utility API defining a simple range, for optimized performance
Input Events - Editors' Copy: A specification defining additions to events for text and related input to allow for the monitoring and manipulation of default browser behavior in the context of text editor applications and other applications that deal with text input and text formatting.
contentEditable - Editors' Copy: A specification defining new values for the contentEditable attribute.
execCommand: Defines the behavior of the editing commands that can be executed with execCommand.

File API - Editors' Copy

An API that enables Web applications to select file objects and access their data. This replaces the File Upload specification.

Gamepad - Editors' Copy

APIs that allow Web applications to directly act on gamepad data.

HTML

Specifications to define the HTML language, HTML-specific APIs for interacting with in-memory representations of resources that use the HTML language, and to define normative requirements for browsers and other user agents which process HTML resources.

HTML: The core language of the World Wide Web: the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). The HTML specification should be progressively modularized into separate documents or extension specifications. Note that many other Working Groups define extensions to HTML. These should be referenced from the HTML Extension specification
HTML Accessibility API Mappings 1.0 - Editors' Copy: How to map HTML elements and attributes to platform accessibility APIs.
ARIA in HTML: Describing the use of ARIA attributes on HTML elements.
Microdata: Widely-used attributes on HTML elements to provide metadata, e.g. as Schema.org or Dublin Core.

Manifest for Web applications - Editors' Copy

A JSON-based manifest, to provide metadata about a web application.

Network

Specifications that allow network communications:

Web Sockets API - Editors' Copy: An API to use the Web Sockets protocol for two-way communication with a remote host.

Pointer Lock (2nd Edition) - Editors' Copy

Defines an API that provides scripted access to raw mouse movement data while locking the target of mouse events to a single element and removing the cursor from view.

Push API - Editors' Copy

An API that provides web applications scripted access to server-sent notifications.

Screen Orientation API - Editors' Copy

An API to enable reading or locking view orientation, and notification of view orientation state changes.

Web Components

Adding custom elements to a document, with well-defined behavior and rendering.

Custom Elements - Editors' Copy: Define and use new types of DOM elements in a document.
Shadow DOM - Editors' Copy: Functional boundaries between DOM trees and how these trees interact with each other within a document, enabling better functional encapsulation within the DOM.

Web Interface Definition Language (Web IDL)

Language bindings and types for Web interface descriptions.

Web Workers - Editors' Copy

An API that allows Web application authors to spawn background workers running scripts in parallel to their main page, allowing for thread-like operation with message-passing as the coordination mechanism.

Potential deliverables

The following documents have been identified as potential Recommendation Track deliverables, if there is consensus in the Working Group that they are ready to become Recommendation-track.

HTML Canvas 2D Context: An API for the 2D Context of the HTML canvas element.
Input Method (IME) API: An API that provides access to a (native) input method editor.
FileSystem API: A local sandboxed file system API exposed only to Web Applications.
Packaging on the Web: Defines an approach for creating packages of files for use on the web.
Quota Management API: An API for managing the amount of storage space (short- or long-term) available for an application to use e.g. in localStorage.
HTML Imports: A way to include and reuse HTML documents in another HTML document.

Note: The list of specifications above were Recommendation Track documents in the previous charter. They are not statements about incubation success, but examples of the incubation process applied to the list of deliverables in the previous charter.

Each specification should detail any known security implications for implementers, Web authors, and end users.

The Web Platform WG will actively seek security, privacy, internationalization, accessibility and architectural review on all its specifications.

If a specification reaches Recommendation status the working group may work on, and deliver an updated version of the specification under this charter. Specifications may be moved to Recommendation and a subsequent version begun to facilitate the progress of other work which depends on a stable reference.

The Working Group will not adopt new proposals until they have matured through the Web Platform Incubator Community Group or a similar incubation phase. If the Working Group decides to add new Recommendation-track deliverables then it will recharter with changes to change its deliverables.

For current information on the list of deliverables and their status see the Web Platform WG Publication Status page.

Specification Maintenance

The working group will maintain errata and publish revisions, as necessary, for the following W3C Recommendations:

Other Deliverables

Other non-normative documents may be created such as:

Test suites for each specification
Primers for each specification
Requirements documents for new specifications
Non-normative schemas for language formats
Non-normative group notes

A comprehensive test suite for all features of a specification is necessary to ensure the specification's robustness, consistency, and implementability, and to promote interoperability between User Agents. Therefore, each specification must have a companion test suite, which should be completed before transition to Candidate Recommendation, and must be completed, with an implementation report, before transition from Candidate Recommendation to Proposed Recommendation. Additional tests may be added to the test suite at any stage of the Recommendation track, and the maintenance of a implementation report is encouraged.

Milestones

The group's Publication Status document provides current data about all of the group's specifications. Although the group expects all of its active deliverables to progress during this charter period, the charter does not include detailed milestone data for each specification because such data is speculative and easily becomes out of date. The Working Group does expect the following to occur:

HTML 5.2 Recommendation in Q4 2017
HTML 5.3 First Public Working Draft in Q3 2017
IndexedDB version 2 Candidate Recommendation in Q3 2017
IndexedDB version 3 First Public Working Draft in Q3 2017
Web Sockets: Recommendation expected in 2017
DOM Parsing and Serialization: Recommendation expected in 2017
DOM 4.1 Recommendation expected in 2017
Microdata: Recommendation expected in late 2017

Dependencies and Liaisons

HTML depends on, and is depended on by, many specifications. Many specifications in many Working Groups depend on WebIDL. Web Sockets depends on work in the IETF's HyBi Working Group.

This working group depends on review of aspects such as accessibility, architectural considerations, internationalisation, security, and privacy in its deliverables.

The Web Platform Working Group will keep contact with and where applicable request review from at least the following:

Accessible Platform Architectures Working Group: This Group ensures W3C specifications provide support for accessibility to people with disabilities.
Accessible Rich Internet Applications Working Group: WAI-ARIA, the Accessible Rich Internet Applications Suite, defines a way to make Web content and Web applications more accessible to people with disabilities and is integrated into HTML to improve the accessibility and interoperability of web content and applications.
Browser Testing and Tools Working Group: This group's Web Driver specification is of interest to the Web Platform WG.
Cascading Style Sheets Working Group: To collaborate on CSS-related aspects of specifications such as Shadow DOM.
Device and Sensors Working Group: To coordinate regarding APIs for device services.
Digital Publishing Working Group: This group has a core interest in the manifest specification, and its scope includes a packaging deliverable.
Internationalization Core Working Group: This group provides advice or review to ensure that specifications meet the needs of an international Web.
Pointer Events Working Group: This group creates DOM extension specifications and is interested in DOM Level 3 Events and UI Events.
Privacy Interest Group (PING): The Web Platform WG will request review of specifications from this group.
SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) Working Group: To help ensure SVG requirements for the Web Platform WG's deliverables are met. The HTML markup language supports embedding SVG content and provides support for the Canvas 2D Context API.
Technical Architecture Group: The Web Platform WG will ask the Technical Architecture Group to review specifications.
Media and Entertainment Interest Group: This Group may review existing work, as well as the relationship between services on the Web and media services, and identify requirements and potential solutions to ensure that the Web will function well with media.
Web Application Security Working Group: This Group develops security and policy mechanisms to improve the security of Web Applications, and enable secure cross-origin communication.
Web Performance Working Group: Many of their specifications extend Web Platform WG deliverables.
Web Platform Incubator Community Group: This group provides a venue for proposing, incubating and discussing new web platform features to prepare them for standardisation, often in the Web Platform WG.
Web Real-Time Communications Working Group: This group creates API specifications for Real-Time Communications in Web browsers.
Web Security Interest Group: The Web Platform WG will request review of specifications from this group.

External Groups

The Working Group may also collaborate with:

Consumer Technology Association (CTA) WAVE project

The CTA WAVE project aims to improve the way internet delivered video is consumed and distributed, referencing the HTML5 standard in the process. As the Web Platform Working Group develops the HTML specification, it should liaise with the CTA WAVE project.

ECMA Technical Committee 39 (TC39)

This is the group responsible for ECMAScript standardization, and related ECMAScript features like E4X. As the Web Platform Working Group will be developing ECMAScript APIs, it should collaborate with TC39.

Internet Engineering Task Force

The IETF is responsible for defining robust and secure protocols for Internet functionality. A close relationship with the IETF HTTP work is crucial to ensuring the good design, deployment, and success of protocol-based APIs such as CORS and Web Sockets. This Working Group will rely upon review and parallel progress of associated specifications, and will keep pace with the IETF's HTTPbis group' work, conditional upon steady progress. The working group may also liaise with the IETFs security work, either directly or through its liaison with the W3C's Web Application Security Working Group.

WHATWG

The Web Platform WG and the WHAT WG both produce versions of the HTML and DOM specifications. The Web Platform WG works on these specifications for many reasons, including:

The specifications are protected under the W3C Patent Policy, ensuring that HTML and DOM remain royalty free for use by implementors and authors;
The specifications are developed with contributions from a broad range of stakeholders including implementors and authors, as well as specialists in accessibility, internationalisation, privacy, and security;
The specifications are produced by a globally recognised standards organization, with a governance model that is designed to find consensus amongst the many diverse constituents of the web platform.

Based on these considerations, the Web Platform WG exercises independent editorial control over these specifications. The WG nonetheless endeavours to minimize differences between the WHAT WG and W3C versions that affect interoperability.

Participation

To be successful, the Web Platform Working Group is expected to have 10 or more active participants for its duration, and to have the participation of industry leaders in fields relevant to the specifications it produces.

If participants from fewer than three distinct browser-engine projects are participating in the group, its charter should be re-examined by the W3C.

The Chairs, specification Editors and test Facilitators are expected to contribute one to two days per week towards the Working Group. There is no minimum requirement for other Participants.

Communication

The group's working mode is generally not to hold plenary teleconferences, but to meet face to face at the TPAC for both specific topics and "in plenary". It holds spec- or topic-specific meetings from time to time, and certain specifications are developed with regular teleconferences. Note the Decision Policy below with regards to meetings.

The Working Group conducts its work primarily through GitHub repositories.

The Group uses mailing lists. Subscription to these lists is open to the public, subject to W3C norms of behavior.

Up-to-date information about the group is available from the Web Platform Working Group home page.

Decision Policy

As required by the W3C Process Document (section 3.3), this group will seek to make decisions when there is consensus and with due process. The expectation is that, an editor or other participant makes an initial proposal, which is refined in discussion with members of the group and other reviewers, and consensus emerges with little formal voting being required.

If a decision is necessary for timely progress, but consensus is not achieved after careful consideration of the range of views presented, the Chairs may put a question out for voting within the group to allow for asynchronous participation, using the mechanism noted in the group's Work Mode documents, and record a decision, along with any objections. The matter should then be considered resolved unless and until new information becomes available.

Any resolution taken in a face-to-face meeting or teleconference is to be considered provisional until 10 (ten) working days after the publication of the resolutions in meeting minutes. When the meeting minutes are sent to the appropriate working group mailing list as described in the Work Mode document, the presence of formal resolutions will be clearly indicated in the email. If no objections are raised on the mailing list within that time, the resolution will be considered to have consensus as a resolution of the Working Group.

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.

Licensing

This Working Group will use the W3C Software and Document license for all its deliverables.

About this Charter

This charter for the Web Platform Working Group has been created according to section 5 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.

Detailed list of Deliverables

Indexed Database API 2.0 Latest publication: 13 March 2017: Reference Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2016/WD-IndexedDB-2-20160818/
associated Call for Exclusion on 18 August 2016 ended on 15 January 2017
Produced under Web Platform Working Group charter
W3C DOM 4.1 Latest publication: 20 April 2017: Reference Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2017/WD-dom41-20170321/
associated Call for Exclusion on 22 March 2017
Exclusion opportunity will end on 18 August 2017
Produced under Web Platform Working Group charter
DOM Parsing and Serialization Latest publication: 17 May 2016: Reference Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2016/WD-DOM-Parsing-20160517/
associated Call for Exclusion on 01 May 2014 ended on 30 June 2014
Produced under Web Applications Working Group charter
UI Events Latest publication: 04 August 2016: Reference Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2013/WD-uievents-20130725/
associated Call for Exclusion on 25 July 2013 ended on 22 December 2013
Produced under Web Applications Working Group charter
UI Events KeyboardEvent code Values Latest publication: 24 October 2016: Reference Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-uievents-code-20151215/
associated Call for Exclusion on 12 June 2014 ended on 09 November 2014
Produced under Web Applications Working Group charter
UI Events KeyboardEvent key Values Latest publication: 24 October 2016: Reference Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-uievents-key-20151215/
associated Call for Exclusion on 12 June 2014 ended on 09 November 2014
Produced under Web Applications Working Group charter
Clipboard API and events Latest publication: 13 December 2016: Reference Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-clipboard-apis-20151215/
associated Call for Exclusion on 16 November 2006 ended on 14 April 2007
Produced under Web API Working Group charter
Selection API Latest publication: 09 May 2017: Reference Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-selection-api-20151124/
associated Call for Exclusion on 07 October 2014 ended on 06 March 2015
Produced under Web Applications Working Group charter
Input Events Level 1 Latest publication: 21 March 2017: Reference Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2016/WD-input-events-20160830/
associated Call for Exclusion on 30 August 2016 ended on 27 January 2017
Produced under Web Platform Working Group charter
File API Latest publication: 21 April 2015: Reference Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-FileAPI-20150421/
Gamepad Latest publication: 25 January 2017: Reference Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-gamepad-20151215/
associated Call for Exclusion on 29 May 2012 ended on 26 October 2012
Produced under Web Applications Working Group charter
HTML 5.1 Latest publication: 01 November 2016: Reference Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2016/PR-html51-20160915/
associated Call for Exclusion on 21 June 2016 ended on 20 August 2016
Produced under Web Platform Working Group charter
HTML 5.2 Latest publication: 09 May 2017: Reference Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2016/WD-html52-20160818/
associated Call for Exclusion on 18 August 2016 ended on 15 January 2017
Produced under Web Platform Working Group charter
HTML Accessibility API Mappings 1.0 Latest publication: 10 May 2017: Reference Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-html-aam-1.0-20150407/
associated Call for Exclusion on 09 April 2015 ended on 04 September 2015
Produced under WAI PF Working Group charter
ARIA in HTML Also developed by Web Platform Working Group.Web Platform Working Group. Latest publication: 23 March 2017: Reference Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-html-aria-20150414/
associated Call for Exclusion on 14 April 2015 ended on 11 September 2015
Produced under HTML Working Group charter
HTML Microdata Latest publication: 04 May 2017: Reference Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2017/WD-microdata-20170504/
associated Call for Exclusion on 04 May 2017
Exclusion opportunity will end on 30 September 2017
Produced under Working Group Charter: Web Platform Working Group charter
Web App Manifest Latest publication: 10 May 2017: Reference Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-appmanifest-20151124/
associated Call for Exclusion on 17 December 2013 ended on 16 May 2014
Produced under Web Applications Working Group charter
The WebSocket API Latest publication: 20 September 2012: Reference Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2012/WD-websockets-20120809/
associated Call for Exclusion on 09 August 2012 ended on 08 October 2012
Produced under Web Applications Working Group charter
Pointer Lock 2.0 Latest publication: 22 November 2016: Reference Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2016/WD-pointerlock-2-20161122/
associated Call for Exclusion on 22 November 2016 ended on 21 April 2017
Produced under Web Platform Working Group charter
Push API Latest publication: 08 May 2017: Reference Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-push-api-20151215/
associated Call for Exclusion on 18 October 2012 ended on 17 March 2013
Produced under Web Applications Working Group charter
The Screen Orientation API Latest publication: 31 October 2016: Reference Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-screen-orientation-20151215/
associated Call for Exclusion on 22 May 2012 ended on 19 October 2012
Produced under Web Applications Working Group charter
Custom Elements Latest publication: 13 October 2016: Reference Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2016/WD-custom-elements-20160119/
associated Call for Exclusion on 24 October 2013 ended on 23 December 2013
Produced under Web Applications Working Group charter
Shadow DOM Latest publication: 13 February 2017: Reference Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-shadow-dom-20151215/
associated Call for Exclusion on 22 May 2012 ended on 19 October 2012
Produced under Web Applications Working Group charter
Web Workers Latest publication: 24 September 2015: Reference Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-workers-20150924/
associated Call for Exclusion on 13 March 2012 ended on 12 May 2012
Produced under Web Applications Working Group charter

Changes from the previous charter

The major changes from the second Web platform Working Group Working Group charter include:

New deliverables:: Intersection Observers, Static Range
Moved from deliverable to potential deliverable:: HTML 2D canvas
Removed as deliverables:: Service Workers; Background synchronization (transferred to a new WG); High-level user events
A further 6-month extension of the Working Group
Updated expected milestones
Removed note aspiring to modularisation of HTML: It's often a useful goal, but pragmatic decisions have shown there is no clearly right answer and the Working Group makes things externally or integrates them on a case-by-case basis.

Changes on September 7

Extended until end of March 2019
Extended until end of 2018
Added Marcos Caceres as co-chair, in replacement of Adrian

Yves Lafon, Team Contact
Xiaoqian Wu, Team Contact
Marcos Caceres, Chair
Charles McCathie Nevile, Chair
Léonie Watson, Chair