Web Thing Protocol 2025 Roadmap

Dear members of the Web Thing Protocol Community Group,

Given the increased level of interest and activity surrounding the Web
Thing Protocol in recent months, I'm pleased to share that this week I
started a StandICT.eu fellowship which will help support me to dedicate
more time to chairing the Web Thing Protocol Community Group over the next
5-6 months.

*Roadmap*

I am hopeful that this will help accelerate the progress of the community
group, and as part of this fellowship I have committed to two Web Thing
Protocol deliverables:

   1. Publication of a W3C Community Group Draft Report by July 2025
   2. Publication of a W3C Community Group Final Report (or second Draft
   Report) by October 2025

These milestones are the basis for my proposed roadmap for this year, with
the goal of publishing an initial version of our Web Thing Protocol
WebSocket sub-protocol specification
<https://w3c.github.io/web-thing-protocol/>, fulfilling the requirements
for a WebSocket sub-protocol
<https://www.w3.org/community/reports/web-thing-protocol/CG-FINAL-web-thing-protocol-requirements-20231101/#websocket-sub-protocol>
set out in our Use Cases & Requirements
<https://www.w3.org/community/reports/web-thing-protocol/CG-FINAL-web-thing-protocol-requirements-20231101/>
document.

I have created milestones on GitHub for the Draft Report
<https://github.com/w3c/web-thing-protocol/milestone/1> in July and the Final
Report <https://github.com/w3c/web-thing-protocol/milestone/2> in October
and have generated an ordered backlog
<https://github.com/orgs/w3c/projects/201> (GitHub project) of features I
believe we need to specify based on the published Use Cases & Requirements
report.

I welcome your feedback on this proposed roadmap.

*Progress So Far*

So far we have made a first pass on an Abstract
<https://w3c.github.io/web-thing-protocol/#abstract> & Introduction
<https://w3c.github.io/web-thing-protocol/#introduction> and have specified
the Protocol Handshake
<https://w3c.github.io/web-thing-protocol/#protocol-handshake> and WebSocket
<https://w3c.github.io/web-thing-protocol/#websocket-reuse> re-use
features. I think we now have a good group consensus on the general WebSocket
message format <https://github.com/w3c/web-thing-protocol/issues/42>, which
has already evolved past the initial Strawman Proposal
<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KWv-aQfMgsqBFg0v4rVqzcVvzzisC7y4X4CMUYGc8rE/edit?usp=sharing>
based on group feedback, and we have started to specify individual
operations <https://w3c.github.io/web-thing-protocol/#properties>
(currently undergoing a bit of a re-factoring
<https://github.com/w3c/web-thing-protocol/pull/45> to use the new message
format).

*How to Contribute*

There's a lot of work to do to write and review the initial draft
specification and achieving this will rely on continued and regular
contributions from the group, so I would be very grateful for any time you
are able to spare over the coming months.

Ways to contribute include:

   - Providing feedback on specification text by reviewing open pull
   requests <https://github.com/w3c/web-thing-protocol/pulls> and filing
   issues to suggest improvements
   - Helping with writing the specification by picking a feature off
the ordered
   backlog <https://github.com/orgs/w3c/projects/201/views/1> and
   submitting a pull request
   - Sharing use cases, identifying potential missing requirements, filing
   bugs and asking questions by filing issues
   <https://github.com/w3c/web-thing-protocol/issues>

Implementation experience is also always particularly valuable for those
brave souls who are willing to try to implement the specification at this
nascent stage.

*Meetings*

I haven't yet planned any more meetings, but if there's interest in a
one-off planning meeting to discuss the proposed roadmap above, and/or
regular progress meetings, then please let me know.

*GitHub & Discord*

In the meantime I encourage continued asynchronous contributions via GitHub
<https://github.com/w3c/web-thing-protocol/> (and this mailing list
<https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-web-thing-protocol/>).

The #web-thing-protocol channel on the Web of Things Community Discord
<https://discord.com/invite/RJNYJsEgnb> is also a good place to hang out to
discuss all things Web Thing Protocol.

Thank you very much for all your contributions so far, and welcome to all
our new members!

Kind regards

Ben

-- 
Ben Francis
Chair
Web Thing Protocol Community Group