HTML plan

Dear all,

We've put a new draft of the HTML specification into GitHub:
http://github.com/w3c/html. 

You can read the editor's draft:
http://w3c.github.io/html. 

It is based on the W3C HTML 5.1 build scripts, synchronised to the WHATWG
source from 12th January 2016.

We would like to check the interoperability of those changes, and work
towards a new Recommendation, with the understanding that anything which
isn't demonstrably interoperable when we publish will be removed from the
specification proposed as a Recommendation and incorporated into a later
update when it is.

We welcome all pull requests for outstanding issues, in particular to fix
important interoperability bugs such as those affecting web developers
working on production web sites. Pull requests with supporting data to
justify a change are actively encouraged. All you need is a GitHub account,
and if you are not a member of the Web Platform working group, please
remember we work to W3C's patent policy terms [1]. This means anyone can
easily help us improve the existing HTML spec by contributing corrections
and clarifications. 

If you want to add a new feature to HTML, we encourage you to develop a
specification in the Web Platform Incubator community group [2] (or
elsewhere if you like). Wherever you work on the proposal, you should
consider bringing it to the Web Platform working group when it has buy-in
from a sizeable community who are prepared to ship it in production, when it
is "reasonably clear" what the rough architecture is, but before you have
got every last detail sorted out. When a proposal has sufficient buy-in to
move it along the W3C Recommendation Track Process, bring it to this Working
Group for wider testing and review, and formal standardisation. See the
"intent to migrate" template [3] for the kind of questions the Working Group
will ask about new proposals.

When HTML5 was published W3C announced its intention to continue publishing
updates, based on interoperable deployment, every year or so.  We would like
to meet this goal and publish a new improved Working Draft rapidly, as a
first step towards meeting that commitment to the community.

The specification has been converted to be generated directly from the
source in GitHub, using Bikeshed [4]. Making bug fixes means editing HTML
source code. You should then run the Bikeshed processor to check for build
errors - this can be done locally, or online.

One of our first tasks will be to triage the outstanding bugs in Bugzilla
[5], fix and resolve any quick editorial issues, resolve feature requests
with a recommendation to take the idea to the Web Platform Incubator
community group, and migrate all other issues to GitHub. Please file new
issues in GitHub.

A year ago, there was a lot of discussion about modularising HTML and the
working group charter [6] calls this out as a deliverable, citing a proposal
that Robin Berjon worked on [7]. The feedback we have received on the
proposed split by chapter is that it doesn't provide the benefits that
modularisation promises. To do this properly will require refactoring of the
specification. We would still like to do this, but we recognise it is a lot
of work and there are drawbacks as well as benefits.

One approach to test modularisation is to encourage people working on a
specific section to split it out from the "main" HTML specification, move it
independently to Recommendation, so that it can be referenced normatively
from the base specification. This way we can get some experience of the
process without undertaking a massive project before we really know the
costs and benefits.

We welcome feedback from WG participants on this approach, and on the HTML
plan itself.

Finally, we also welcome expressions of interest from anybody who would like
to join the editing team - for which the reward is hard work and the
satisfaction of a job well done. While anybody can submit a pull request
proposing a change to the specification, the editors will work together to
review pull requests and integrate them when they are ready.

Regards,
Web Platform Working Group chairs and Team contacts

[1] W3C Patent Policy
    http://www.w3.org/Consortium/facts#patpol

[2] Web Platform Incubator Community Group (WICG)
    https://www.w3.org/community/wicg/

[3] Intent to Migrate
    https://wicg.github.io/admin/intent-to-migrate.html

[4] Bikeshed
    https://github.com/tabatkins/bikeshed

[5] Bugzilla bugs
    http://tinyurl.com/nkjxluk
    http://tinyurl.com/j78uzg3

[6] Web Platform Working Group Charter
    http://www.w3.org/2015/10/webplatform-charter.html

[7] Robin Berjon's module proposal
    http://darobin.github.io/breakup/specs/

-- 
@LeonieWatson tink.uk Carpe diem

Received on Tuesday, 19 January 2016 19:21:33 UTC