Fwd: Announced: W3C and WHATWG to work together to advance the open Web platform

-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: Announced: W3C and WHATWG to work together to advance the open 
Web  platform
Resent-Date: Tue, 28 May 2019 08:44:46 +0000
Resent-From: w3c-ac-members@w3.org
Date: Tue, 28 May 2019 10:44:32 +0200
From: Coralie Mercier <coralie@w3.org>
To: w3c-ac-forum@w3.org
CC: chairs@w3.org

Dear Advisory Committee Representative,
Chairs,

Further to the April 5 announcement [1] of the Director's intent to sign 
a Memorandum of Understanding with the WHATWG, we have announced via the 
W3C Blog that W3C and the WHATWG have just signed an agreement to 
collaborate on the development of a single version of the HTML and DOM 
specifications.

W3C and WHATWG to work together to advance the open Web platform
https://www.w3.org/blog/2019/05/w3c-and-whatwg-to-work-together-to-advance-the-open-web-platform/
28 May 2019 by Jeff Jaffe

Text version:
=============

=============================

[image: W3C and WHATWG logos side by side 
<https://www.w3.org/2019/05/w3c-whatwg-logos.png>] I am pleased to 
announce that W3C and the WHATWG have just signed an agreement to 
collaborate on the development of a single version of the HTML and DOM 
specifications. The [link 
<https://www.w3.org/2019/04/WHATWG-W3C-MOU.html>]Memorandum of 
Understanding jointly published as the WHATWG/W3C Joint Working Mode 
gives the specifics of this collaboration.

Motivated by the belief that having two distinct HTML and DOM 
specifications claiming to be normative is generally harmful for the 
community, and the mutual desire to bring the work back together, W3C 
and WHATWG agree to the following terms:

 • W3C and WHATWG work together on HTML and DOM, in the WHATWG 
repositories, to produce a Living Standard and Recommendation/Review 
Draft-snapshots
 • WHATWG maintains the HTML and DOM Living Standards
 • W3C facilitates community work directly in the WHATWG repositories 
(bridging communities, developing use cases, filing issues, writing 
tests, mediating issue resolution)
 • W3C stops independent publishing of a designated list of 
specifications related to HTML and DOM and instead will work to take 
WHATWG Review Drafts to W3C Recommendations
Additional aspects of the collaboration include:

 • WHATWG produces periodic snapshots, called Review Drafts, for a 
patent exclusion opportunity; W3C selects those to be Candidate 
Recommendations, which follow the W3C process (Candidate Recommendation 
→ Proposed Recommendation → Recommendation). The W3C CR, PR, and REC, 
and the WHATWG Review Draft are the same document
 • [link <https://www.w3.org/TR/>]/TR (All Standards and Drafts) will 
point to whatwg.org for HTML and DOM
 • There is a resolution process in case of sustained disagreements 
(escalation to the WHATWG Steering Group, TAG review, and W3C Director) 
and if no agreement is reached, either side may terminate the agreement 
if a fork is published
 • Joint copyright and branding of the single documents (Review 
Drafts/Recommendations)
 • Use of annotations for features without Implementation Experience
 • Different formatting of W3C Recs on whatwg.org
 • Update to W3C’s Normative Reference Policy to allow reference to 
stable features in Living Standards

The HTML Working Group which we will [link 
<https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-new-work/2019Apr/0004.html>]soon 
recharter will assist the W3C community in raising issues and proposing 
solutions for the HTML and DOM specifications, and bring WHATWG Review 
Drafts to Recommendation.

W3C and WHATWG had been exploring effective partnership mechanisms [link 
<https://www.w3.org/blog/2017/12/whatwg-working-mode-changes/>]since 
December 2017 after the WHATWG adopted many shared features as their 
work-mode and an IPR policy. Since then, W3C Membership weighed in 
regularly including at two bi-annual meetings; there were several direct 
meetings between W3C management and the WHATWG Steering Group; in 
September and December 2018 during the extensions of the Web Platform 
Working Group, we noted that while negotiations continued in order to 
provide a single authoritative specification for HTML and DOM, the 
specifications that were part of the negotiations with the WHATWG would 
not be advanced on the W3C Recommendation track.

W3C remains committed to ensuring that HTML development continues to 
take into account the needs of the global community, and continues to 
improve in areas such as accessibility, internationalization and privacy 
while providing greater interoperability, performance and security.
=============================


With kind regards,
Coralie Mercier, Head of W3C Marketing & Communications


[1] https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-ac-members/2019AprJun/0007.html

--
Coralie Mercier  -  W3C Marketing & Communications -  https://www.w3.org
mailto:coralie@w3.org +337 810 795 22 https://www.w3.org/People/Coralie/

Received on Tuesday, 28 May 2019 10:30:40 UTC