W3C

Charter

Scalable Vector Graphics WG

This is the charter of the SVG Working Group, distribued with the call for participation in May 2001. It is published here in its original form (as published, the charter was W3C Member Only) except for the addition of this banner, the marking of links as W3C Member only where appropriate, and the reference to the roadmap before the Milestones section.
Dean Jackson - Jan 2003.

Every group must have a charter that describes the following:

The group's charter must be approved by the Director.
-- Process Document

Mission Statement

The working group will be chartered to both subset and extend the SVG 1.0 format, producing a modular XML tagset usable in mixed-XML namespace documents. SVG is a graphics format has been implemented in viewers and authoring tools and is now seeing adoption by the content authoring community as a replacement for many current uses of raster graphics. SVG 1.0 is suitable for desktop and palmtop systems. However, there is a need for a W3C-defined subset of SVG suitable for the particular requirements of mobile devices. There is also a need to improve printing, for example to allow multi-page print documents.

At the same time, several requirements were identified in the SVG 1.0 timeframe that could not be fully realised in the SVG 1.0 specification. The principal request is greater integration with other W3C specifications, such as XForms (to allow SVG form controls); CSS and XSL (to allow wrapping styled text inside graphics); and to ensure that SVG graphics can be placed inline in multi-namespace XML documents.

This additional work will mean that the graphics in Web documents will be smaller, faster, more interactive, and be displayable on a wider range of device resolutions from small mobile devices through office computer monitors to high resolution printers. This will be a significant advance in Web functionality. Interoperability, both in multiple browsers across multiple platforms and while being read and written by multiple authoring tools, is a prime focus. See the activity statement for the overall goals and rationale of this activity area.

Scope and Work Items

Architectural Constraints

The architectural constraints on the technology to be developed are:

Technical Items

Tracking and Maintenance Items

Success criteria

Production of a stable document collectively addressing each of the Work Items, at Proposed Recommendation status.

Availability of multiple, independent, interoperable implementations of SVG, and authoring tools for SVG, including implementations on mobile devices and implementations.

Duration

This group will commence in June 2001 and will terminate in June 2003.

Deliverables

The group will create one or more Working Drafts, Test Suites, Implementation Reports, and track early implementations leading towards the release of further SVG specifications and the establishment of a deployed base of SVG conformant software.

The precise Working Drafts in production at a given time are listed on the WG page (W3C Member Only).

The group will produce two Proposed Recommendations, drawn from stable Working Drafts.

Minutes of teleconferences and face to face meetings are also available from the WG page (W3C Member Only)

Legal Data

The SVG Working Group will develop a Royalty Free (RF) specification as defined by the Patent Policy Working Group.

Prior disclosure of Intellectual Property Rights pertaining to SVG is required at the time of the activity proposal and initial call for participation (W3C Member Only), and when an individual Member joins the Working Group. W3C Members agree to use good faith efforts to disclose all information known about patent claims that are likely to be essential to implement SVG specifications.

If during the course of its work the SVG WG incorporates a technology contribution as normative that is known to be contrary to the RF licensing requirement described here and in its Charter, then it must initiate an Ad Hoc Patent Advisory Group.

When specifications developed by the SVG Working Group go to each of these three stages: Last Call, Candidate Recommendation, and Proposed Recommendation, a call to identify patents likely to be essential to implement that specification shall be included as required by the Patent Policy WG . Any W3C member not willing to license particular essential technology on RF terms must opt-out specific patent claims they hold within 60 days after the issue of the specification for that stage. In consequence, the minimum period before entering the next stage (Last Call to Candidate recommendation, and Candidate recommendation to Proposed Recommendation) shall be 60 days.

Release policy

The link below to documents under consideration is W3C Member Only. All public information can be found on the SVG Roadmap.

A list of documents actively under consideration by the group (W3C Member Only), is maintained by the chair. To add a document to the list, or to revise a document in the list, the draft should be sent to the chair and/or the group mailing list. The chair will decide on new/revised drafts in collaboration with the group, provided the document falls within the scope of work items for the group.

As documents stabilize, they will be released as W3C Working Drafts. No document may stay on the list of documents actively under consideration by the group for more than three months without being released to the public as an intermediate draft.. Documents may be released sooner if consensus is achieved. If the three month deadline is reached, the current draft will be released (and not a draft from three months earlier). If, before this time, anyone in the group feels the current draft will not be not suitable for public release as an intermediate draft, their options are:

Relationship to other forums

Hypertext Coordination Group (W3C Member Only)
The SVG WG will coordinate its work with other Working Groups primarily through participation in the Hypertext Coordintion Group.
XML Working Group (W3C Member Only)
The SVG WG does not address changes to XML syntax. SVG will be written in XML 1.0, with the addition of XML namespaces.
Document Object Model (DOM) (W3C Member Only)
SVG content will be accessible from the XML Document Object Model.
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (W3C Member Only)
The work of the SVG WG will be coordinated with the WAI project to ensure accessibility of SVG.
XForms (W3C Member Only)
Coordination with the Xforms Working Group will ensure that SVG will be usable as a rich presentation layer for XForms, allowing integration of form controls in SVG graphics.
SYMM (W3C Member Only)
Coordination with the SYMM WG or its successor will build on the joint work done to create SMIL Animation, and allow integration of SVG and SMIL 2.0
XML Linking (W3C Member Only)
The SVG format will continue to use the results of the XLink group for internal hyperlinking, linking into and out of the SVG graphic.
CSS Working Group (W3C Member Only)
The work of the SVG WG will be coordinated with this group to ensure that SVG and mixed SVG/other namespace documents can be styled.
XSL Working Group (W3C Member Only)
The work of the SVG WG will be coordinated with this group to ensure that SVG and mixed SVG/other namespace documents can be styled, and that mixtures of SVG and XSL-FO namespace can be generated by XSL-T stylesheets.
Device Independence Activity
The work of the SVG WG will be coordinated with this activity, in particular the Device Independence Working Group (W3C Member Only) and the Mobile Access Interest Group, to ensure that SVG can be used on a broader range of devices.
Internationalization Working Group (W3C Member Only)
The I18N WG will review the SVG specification to ensure it is adequately Internationalized.

Milestones

This information is out of date and has been superceeded by the SVG Roadmap. It is left here for historical purposes.

One or more public Working Drafts, plus associated Test Suites and Implementation Reports, will be produced covering each of the Work Items, to the following schedule:

Meetings

A quarterly face to face meeting will be arranged. Meeting details are made available on the W3C Member Calendar and from the WG page (W3C Member Only)

Communication Mechanisms

Email

The archived member-only mailing list w3c-svg-wg@w3.org is the primary means of discussion within the group. Postings to this list are Member confidential, as is the Working Group page

The archived mailing list www-svg@w3.org is used for public discussion of Scalable Vector Graphics, and WG members are encouraged to subscribe. There is a public page on SVG, maintained by the chair.

Phone

Biweekly 90-minute phone conferences will be held. Minutes will be taken in rotation by WG members and mailed to the WG list within 24 hours.

Voting Mechanisms

The Group works by consensus, including the use of straw polls. In the event of failure to achieve consensus, the Group may resort to a vote as described in the Process Document. Each Member company which has at least one Group member in good standing may vote. There is one vote per W3C Member company. Votes are held by email to allow all participants a chance to vote; there is a two week voting period followed by a period of two working days for the announcement of the result. W3C staff and invited experts do not vote; however in the event of a tie the chair has a casting vote. If the issue is solved by consensus during the voting period, the vote is cancelled.

Participation

Participants (Working Group members, Invited experts, and W3C Team members) are required not to disclose information obtained during participation, until that information is publicly available.

by W3C Members

Requirements for meeting attendance and timely response are described in the Process document. Participation (meetings, reviewing and writing drafts) is expected to consume time equal to 1 day per week for a period of one year.

W3C Members may also offer to review one or more working drafts from the group for clarity, consistency, technical merit, fitness for purpose and conformance with other W3C specifications. They are required to provide the review comments by the agreed-to date but are not required to attend meetings.

by invited experts

As decided on a case by case basis, invited experts may attend a single meeting or a series; they may in some cases be subscribed to the Group mailing list. For the duration of their participation, invited experts are encouraged to adopt the same requirements for meeting attendance and timely response as are required of W3C Members.

by W3C Team

W3C Team will ensure that the mailing lists and Group page are adequately maintained and that public Working Drafts are made available on the Technical Reports page. W3C Team will post minutes of teleconferences to the Group mailing list and to the Group page.

A W3C Team member will provide liaison between any non-Team document editors and the W3C Team; including posting revisions of Working Drafts to the Group page.

W3C Team are expected to adopt the same requirements for meeting attendance and timely response as are required of Working Group members.

Chris Lilley <chris@w3.org>
Last modified: $Date: 2003/01/22 02:28:31 $