The Future of Powerful APIs on the Web Platform
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Meeting

Event details

Date:
– Central European Summer Time
Status:
Confirmed
Location:
Giralda V - Level -2
Participants:
Harald Alvestrand, Daniel Appelquist, David Baron, Christian Biesinger, Andreas Bovens, Hongchan Choi, Ian Clelland, Andrew Comminos, Nick Doty, Christian Dullweber, Michael Ficarra, Simon Hangl, Jonathan Hao, Lucas Haraped, Marian Harbach, Dominique Hazaël-Massieux, Lu Huang, Michael Jackson, Toshiaki Koike, Anssi Kostiainen, Mirja Kühlewind, Christian Liebel, Yifan Luo, Brian May, Michael McCool, Alexis Menard, Michal Mocny, Sangwhan Moon, Matthew Reynolds, Kagami Rosylight, Vincent Scheib, Fernando Serboncini, Swetha Sivaram, Thomas Steiner, Austin Sullivan, Peter Thatcher, Kunihiko Toumura, Lea Verou, Xiaohan Wang, Chris Wilson, Rupert Wiser, Howard Wolosky, Xiaoqian Wu
Big meeting:
TPAC 2023 (Calendar)

Powerful APIs have been a constant source of contention when balancing the needs of making the web platform competitive while still providing the fundamental guarantees such as security and privacy. Given the trend of web-platform derivative application runtimes such as Electron becoming popular, the potential and user needs of this is clear - but how we can deliver such functionality while providing the security and privacy guarantees of a browser remains an unsolved problem.

As a simple example of this being a problem - fundamental platform functionality, such as accessing files is still in an unsatisfying state, leaving the web platform as a less desirable platform for developers to target serious applications against. Is there a path where we can have a standardized replacement for Electron, and if so, what kind of fundamental architectural changes would that entail?

This session would like to invite members of the community who are interested in contributing towards a solution to this. Of the participants, we would like to create a task force to identify unmet user needs on the web platform, attempt to find a path forward to tackle this problem space, and compile a set of principles and requirements that solutions developed to address these needs should follow. This venture will function as a TAG-endorsed task force, and the participants will be invited by the TAG chairs. Members may include current or former members of the TAG.

The task force would be identifying ways to bridge the gap between the Web Platform and native application platforms, while protecting security and user privacy, aligning with the TAG's Ethical Principles, Design Principles, the in-development Privacy Principles and the Privacy & Security Questionnaire. We would need to ensure this effort has multi-stakeholder interest, while ensuring cross-browser and platform support.

Agenda

Chairs:
Sangwhan Moon, Lea Verou, Daniel Appelquist

Description:
Powerful APIs have been a constant source of contention when balancing the needs of making the web platform competitive while still providing the fundamental guarantees such as security and privacy. Given the trend of web-platform derivative application runtimes such as Electron becoming popular, the potential and user needs of this is clear - but how we can deliver such functionality while providing the security and privacy guarantees of a browser remains an unsolved problem.

As a simple example of this being a problem - fundamental platform functionality, such as accessing files is still in an unsatisfying state, leaving the web platform as a less desirable platform for developers to target serious applications against. Is there a path where we can have a standardized replacement for Electron, and if so, what kind of fundamental architectural changes would that entail?

This session would like to invite members of the community who are interested in contributing towards a solution to this. Of the participants, we would like to create a task force to identify unmet user needs on the web platform, attempt to find a path forward to tackle this problem space, and compile a set of principles and requirements that solutions developed to address these needs should follow. This venture will function as a TAG-endorsed task force, and the participants will be invited by the TAG chairs. Members may include current or former members of the TAG.

The task force would be identifying ways to bridge the gap between the Web Platform and native application platforms, while protecting security and user privacy, aligning with the TAG's Ethical Principles, Design Principles, the in-development Privacy Principles and the Privacy & Security Questionnaire. We would need to ensure this effort has multi-stakeholder interest, while ensuring cross-browser and platform support.

Goal(s):
Solicit feedback on problem space, iterate on focus area for task force, and recruit participants.

Materials:

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