Standardising the Web Thing Protocol in the W3C WoT Working Group

Dear members of the Web Thing Protocol Community Group,

I am writing to share some exciting news. The W3C WoT Working Group
<https://www.w3.org/WoT/wg/> have expressed an interest in formally
standardising the Web Thing Protocol
<https://w3c.github.io/web-thing-protocol/>, as the tentative "WoT Thing
Protocol" normative deliverable
<https://w3c.github.io/wot/charters/wot-wg-2025-draft.html#tentative-deliverables>
in their next charter, including both an HTTP
<https://www.w3.org/community/reports/web-thing-protocol/CG-FINAL-web-thing-protocol-requirements-20231101/#http-sub-protocol>
and WebSocket
<https://www.w3.org/community/reports/web-thing-protocol/CG-FINAL-web-thing-protocol-requirements-20231101/#websocket-sub-protocol>
sub-protocol.

The Web Thing Protocol Community Group was spun out of the WoT Working
Group in 2019 to incubate a "common protocol for communicating with
connected devices over the web, to enable ad-hoc interoperability on the
Web of Things."

Our Use Cases & Requirements report
<https://www.w3.org/community/reports/web-thing-protocol/CG-FINAL-web-thing-protocol-requirements-20231101/>
notes that "the Web Thing Protocol specification itself, or subsections of
it, are intended to eventually join a standards track at the W3C or another
standards body such as the IETF." This would be the realisation of that
goal.

The Working Group's new charter
<https://w3c.github.io/wot/charters/wot-wg-2025-draft.html> is currently
only at the draft stage and still needs to be approved by Working Group
members, and the W3C Advisory Committee. However, if this goes ahead we
should think about what steps we want to take in order to hand off the
specification to the WoT Working Group, and what that means for the future
of our community group.

My own thoughts on that are:

   1. Consider publishing a Final Community Group report for the Web Thing
   Protocol WebSocket Sub-protocol
   <https://w3c.github.io/web-thing-protocol/>, as a point of reference and
   starting point for the Working Group.
   2. Keep our Community Group open for the time being, since the Working
   Group's "tentative deliverable" is dependent on "incubation progress,
   interest from multiple implementers, and the consensus of the Group
   participants".
   3. Consider whether the Community Group would like to start work on any
   other deliverables within the scope of our charter, in particular
   "Evaluation of other potential Web of Things sub-protocols (e.g. for CoAP)".
   4. If the WoT Thing Protocol is ultimately not adopted as a deliverable
   of the WoT Working Group, we can continue to incubate the Web Thing
   Protocol in our community group.

Please let me know what you think, file issues
<https://github.com/w3c/web-thing-protocol/> for anything you would like to
see addressed before the potential publication of a Final Community Group
Report, and reply here if you have any questions or concerns.

The WoT Working Group have noted the good level of collaboration in the Web
Thing Protocol Community Group, and are keen to make sure that no
contributors are prevented from continuing to contribute to the
specification if and when it transitions to the Working Group. This could
either be through an existing W3C member organisation requesting to join
the WoT Working Group <https://www.w3.org/groups/wg/wot/instructions/>, a
contributor's affiliated organisation joining as a new member of the W3C
<https://www.w3.org/membership/>, or through fast-tracked entry onto the W3C
Invited Experts <https://www.w3.org/invited-experts/> programme.

*If you are a member of the Web Thing Protocol Community Group and are
interested in continuing to contribute through the WoT Working Group, then
please either contact me or contact the WoT Working Group
<https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-wot-wg/> directly so we can
figure out the best route for you to do so. *We will need a critical mass
of contributors and multiple independent implementations in order for the
"WoT Thing Protocol" to become a W3C Recommendation.

This is a very significant milestone for the Web Thing Protocol Community
Group and, I think, a good example of the W3C Process working well. I'd
like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank everyone who has
contributed so far, and invite you to continue to contribute via both the
Community Group and the WoT Working Group as appropriate.

Let's put the web back in the Web of Things
<https://tola.me.uk/blog/2026/03/05/putting-the-web-back-in-the-web-of-things/>
!

Kind regards
Ben
Chair of the Web Thing Protocol Community Group

-- 
Ben Francis
Founder
Krellian Ltd. <https://krellian.com>