MiniApps Ecosystem Community Group Charter

Start Date: December 15^th 2019

The MiniApps Ecosystem Community Group provides a forum for global community to discuss, incubate and propose MiniApp related standard ideas with the goal to bring more interoperability and robustness to MiniApp ecosystem.

Background

MiniApp as a new form of mobile application, leveraging both Web technologies (especially CSS and Javascript) as well as capabilities of native applications, is gaining more and more popularities in Asian countries such as China. To enhance the interoperability between different MiniApp platforms (AKA the super application or host application), main stream MiniApp vendors has been working together in W3C Chinese Web Interest Group since May 2019 and published MiniApp Standardization White Paper in September 2019 as the initial standardization exploration for MiniApp technologies.

As more global companies get interested in joining the MiniApp related discussion, the MiniApp Ecosystem Community Group was proposed and approved during TPAC2019 so that global Web community can join the discussion.

Scope of Work

The MiniApp Ecosystem Community Group aims to discuss proposals for MiniApp features that would benefit the interoperability and robustness of MiniApp ecosystem, including:

Out of Scope

The group does not intend to discuss ideas related to MiniApp platform operation.

Current Proposals

Based on the MiniApp Standardization White Paper as well as previous discussion in W3C Chinese Web Interest Group, the following projects are proposed as initial standardization exploration of MiniApp.

• URI scheme
• ŸWidget
• Application life cycle and events
• Manifest

New projects or status changes are communicated to the group through the public mailing list. Chairs and editors should publish status updates to the group public mailing list to allow group participants to monitor progress without having to directly watch every repo.

Coordination

It is anticipated that the group will collaborate with appropriate W3C Working Groups and WHATWG work streams in order to transition spec proposals to the Recommendation or Living Standard track. This group will probably get into collaboration with the following groups:

• Web Application Working Group
• Web Performance Working Group
• Service Workers Working Group
• Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group
• Devices and Sensors Working Group
• Web Application Security Working Group
• Immersive Web Working Group
• Web Incubator Community Group (WICG)
• Accessible Platform Architectures Working Group
• Machine Learning Community Group
• Internationalization Working Group
• Privacy Interest Group(PING)
• WHATWG

Community Group Process and Patent Policy

The group operates under the Community and Business Group Process. Terms of in this charter that conflict with those of the Community and Business Group Process are void.

As with other Community Groups, W3C seeks organizational licensing commitments under the W3C Community Contributor License Agreement (CLA) (Proposals in this Community Group charter are applicable “Specification” in the CLA). When people request to participate without representing their organization’s legal interests, W3C will in general approve those requests for this group with the following understanding: W3C will seek and expect an organizational commitment under the CLA starting with the individual’s first request to make a contribution to a group deliverable. The section on Contribution Mechanics describes how W3C expects to monitor these contribution requests.

Communication

The group tends to have monthly teleconferences and conducts its work on the public mailing list public-miniapps@w3.org as well as its GitHub Repository for technical discussions. Other communication tools are allowed if considerable number of the group participants decide to embrace them.

Participation and Contribution

Membership of the group is open to everybody but all participants will have signed the W3C Community Contributor License Agreement. Chairs and editors of feature proposals must ensure that no contributions are adopted from anyone who is not a member of the Community Group.

Specifications created for proposals in the Community Group must use the W3C Software and Document License.

All Github repositories attached to the Community Group must contain a copy of the CONTRIBUTING and LICENSE files.

Note: this CG will not use a contrib mailing list for contributions since all contributions will be tracked via Github mechanisms (e.g. pull requests).

Decision Policy

This group will seek to make decisions when there is consensus. consensus decisions will be recorded through meeting minutes or its GitHub repo issue list with assistance from the Chairs.

Any technical specification that is planned to be proposed to a W3C working group should require:

About This Charter

This Charter can be amended by the Chairs with consultation of the Community Group.

Charter History

The following table lists details of all changes from the initial charter.