Note. This charter has expired. Please refer to the new charter.
This charter is written in accordance with section 3.2.3 of the W3C Process.
To fulfill the promise of XML for applying XHTML to a wide variety of platforms including mobile, television, desktops and hardcopy. To assist W3C's leadership role in advancing the baseline for Web browsers to support rich Web pages that combine W3C's work on areas such as math, scalable vector graphics, synchronized multimedia, and forms.
This will be the third time that the W3C has chartered a working group for HTML. The scope of this charter is to see through to completion, the transition to XML. This includes finishing work on modularizing XHTML for use with mobile, television and other platforms. This work has hitherto focussed on using XML Document Type Definitions (DTDs) to provide a formal description for modules. Further work is now needed to express XHTML Modularization in XML Schemas.
DTDs are mature, and there is a broad pool of experience that can be used as guidance for creating maintainable modular DTDs. By comparison, Schemas are new, and it will take some time to build up the skills needed for creating easy to maintain schemas for XHTML Modularization. It may be appropriate to use a approach where an easier to maintain representation is transformed into the XML Schema representation.
The W3C Recommendation for XHTML 1.0 has provided a starting point for transitioning the Web from SGML-based HTML, but progress will be limited while XHTML is reliant on the use of "text/html" for delivering content to user agents. The next step will be to register an Internet Media Type for XHTML following the guidelines set out by the W3C-IETF liaison group studying Internet Media types for applications of XML.
W3C's work on areas such as math, scalable vector graphics, synchronized multimedia, voice browsing and forms holds great promise for a new generation of Web pages. Work is now needed on combining these with XHTML, and for W3C to take a leadership role in promoting the resultant document types as the new baseline for browser interoperability. The HTML working group will need to collaborate with other working groups to assist W3C in reaching this goal.
The need for liaison with other related W3C groups and activities is described below. Of particular note, is the Hypertext Coordination Group, which provides a forum for managing cross working group activities, for instance, reviewing specifications developed by other groups. There is an increasing need for technical collaboration between groups for joint work on requirements, specifications and test suites. One way for this to occur is via small subgroups, set up for a strictly limited time and scope, which report back to the respective working groups.
The success of the HTML working group will be judged on how well it fulfills the above objectives in terms of the deliverables and milestones set out below.
This group was planned to last for 18 months, following its approval by W3C members. The charter commenced in June 2000 and was originally supposed to expire in December 2001. It was extended by the Director's decision until June 2002 to finish remaining work.
In the following, the terms: Note, Working Draft, Candidate Recommendation, and Proposed Recommendation are defined in the W3C Process.
Minutes of telephone conferences and face to face meetings
A regularly updated publicly accessible road map setting out the expected dates for the working group's public deliverables, e.g. working drafts, last calls, candidate and proposed recommendations.
Proposed Recommendation for XHTML Modularization formalized in terms of XML Schemas and XML 1.0 DTDs. This work will be delivered in two stages. The first will provide an XML 1.0 DTD and the second will add an XML Schema.
Proposed Recommendations for XHTML document types composed using XHTML Modularization. These are being developed in response to requests from organizations targeting mobile, television and desktop platforms.
Registration of an Internet Media Type for XHTML following the guidelines set out by the W3C-IETF liaison group studying Internet Media types for applications of XML.
An investigation into the requirements for event binding for XHTML. This work may lead to a revised XHTML module.
The object element introduced in HTML 4.0 has in practice presented problems for interoperability. An investigation is to be carried out to study these problems, to identify requirements, and to propose potential solutions. This work may lead to a new XHTML module that updates or replaces the XHTML 1.0 object element.
Profiles and test suites for document types that combine XHTML with other W3C specifications, for instance, Math, SMIL Boston, XForms, etc. This work will be restricted in scope and done in cooperation with other W3C working groups leveraging test suites developed by these groups
On-going maintenance of W3C's Open Source tool (HTML Tidy) for cleaning up HTML and transforming it to XHTML. This is now widely used, either on its own, or as part of other HTML editing tools.
Promotional materials and activities - encouraging the development of authoring tools, user agents and good practices for the next generation of HTML, for example, tutorial descriptions and open meetings
A list of documents actively under consideration by the group, is to be maintained by the W3C staff contact under the direction of the working group 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.
The Working Group Charter shall be publicly accessible on the W3C Web site, along with descriptions of the goals and current status of the Working Group's proposals, plus guidelines, tutorials and other promotional materials. A public mailing list and archive shall be provided to encourage open discussion of the Working Group's proposals. The Working Group is expected to track discussions on this list and to respond appropriately, as a commitment to public accountability.
To ensure the freedom of discussion sometimes necessary for an open and fruitful exchange of views, the e-mail archives and minutes of meetings of the Working Group will be restricted to W3C members and invited experts.
Liaison with other W3C groups can take advantage of a broad range of mechanisms such as cross membership, reviews of drafts produced by other groups, joint meetings etc.
Aside from the dedicated work of the Group members, a chair is required to facilitate discussion and coordinate efforts; the tasks of posting minutes and other materials to the groups Web pages must be taken care of too. Steven Pemberton has volunteered to serve the Group by performing these roles as the Chair.
Face to face meetings are generally hosted by organizations participating in the working group. This will involve arranging a place to meet, reserving accommodation for participants and catering so as to maximize effective working time.
The Working Group gathers for face-to-face discussions at least once every 6 months and preferably 4 times a year. Meeting details will be made available on the W3C Member Calendar and from the Working Group page.
The archived member-only mailing list w3c-html-wg@w3.org is the primary means of discussion within the group.
The archived mailing list www-html@w3.org is used for public discussion of the new generation of HTML, and Working Group members are encouraged to subscribe. The Working Group is expected to track discussions on this list and to respond appropriately, as a commitment to public accountability.
A weekly one-hour phone conference will be held. The exact details, dates and times will be published in advance on the Working Group page. The Chair is expected to post an agenda in advance of the conference call.
The Working Group shall maintain a Web page that shows the list of active documents, the meeting schedule, and links to email archives, meeting minutes, and the list of Working Group participants etc. These pages will be restricted in access to W3C members and invited experts.
The Group works by consensus. In the event of failure to achieve consensus, the Group may resort to a vote as described in the W3C Process. 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.
Requirements for meeting attendance and timely response are described in the W3C Process. Participation (meetings, reviewing and writing drafts) is expected to consume time amounting 1 day per week for the lifetime of the group. Working group participants are required not to disclose information obtained during participation, until that information is publicly available.
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. The only participation requirement is to provide the review comments by the agreed-to date.
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.
Invited experts are subject to the same requirement for information disclosure as are required of W3C Members.
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 arrange to take minutes at teleconferences and face to face meetings and post these to the Group mailing list and to the Group page.
A W3C team member will provide liaison between 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, timely response and information disclosure as are required of W3C Members.