Charter

The XML Hypermedia Community group exists to explore ways to represent and document XML hypermedia, and declarative link discovery and presentation techniques.

The first goal of XML is to be successful on the internet. That XML is largely disappearing on the web is evidence that some adjustments are necessary. Hypermedia affordances are fundamental constructs at the heart of the web architectural style: hypermedia as the engine of application state. It is clear that XML lacks simple standard hypermedia affordances, and the means to create them. The XLink standard, while containing the @href affordance vowel, lacks other vowels pertinent to application state management on the web. So that needs to be fixed.

Secondly, and possibly more importantly, XML gives developers the tools to create vocabularies from scratch. The use of these tools implies redefining hypermedia vowels locally, in every vocabulary which is defined. A result of this is that there are no standard hypermedia affordances or vowels across XML vocabularies, and many XML vocabularies are defined in a way which is ignorant of, or only partially cognizant of the architectural style of the web. The goal of this group is to find a way to provide XML developers the tools which address this situation in a manner which is a) backwards compatible with existing practice and b) encourages respect of the architectural style of the web in XML vocabulary design.