This is a revision of the draft revised W3C WebRTC Working Group charter sent for review by the W3C Advisory Committee. It incorporates changes based on feedback received during the AC review. See also the current WebRTC Working Group charter .
The mission of the Web Real-Time Communications Working Group, part of the Ubiquitous Web Applications Activity , is to define client-side APIs to enable Real-Time Communications in Web browsers.
These APIs should enable building applications that can be run inside a browser, requiring no extra downloads or plugins, that allow communication between parties using audio, video and supplementary real-time communication, without having to use intervening servers (unless needed for firewall traversal, or for providing intermediary services). APIs enabling supplementary functions, such as recording, image capture and screen sharing are also in scope.
| End date | March 2018 2017 |
|---|---|
| Confidentiality | Proceedings are public |
| Initial Chairs |
|
|
Team
Contacts
(FTE %: 10) |
Dominique Hazaël-Massieux |
| Usual Meeting Schedule |
Teleconferences:
approximately
1
per
month
Face-to-face: up to 3-4 per year |
Enabling real-time communications between Web browsers require the following client-side technologies to be available:
To advance to Proposed Recommendation, each specification is expected to have two independent implementations of each feature defined in the specification.
To advance to Proposed Recommendation, interoperability between the independent implementations (that is, bidirectional audio and video communication between the implementations) should be demonstrated.
The definition of the network protocols used to establish the connections between peers is out of scope for this group; in general, it is expected that protocols considerations will be handled in the IETF.
The definition of any new codecs for audio and video is out of scope.
The working group will deliver specifications that cover at least the following functions, unless they are found to be fully specified within other working groups' finished results:
The working group may decide to group the specified functions in one or more specifications. The Working Group has already started and will continue work on the following specifications:
as well as on the following specifications jointly developed with the Device APIs Working Group :
This work will be done in collaboration with the IETF. The W3C will define APIs to ensure that application developers can control the components or the architecture for selection and profiling of the wire protocols that will be produced by the IETF Real-Time Communication in WEB-browsers (RTCWeb) Working Group. While the specified API Functions will not constrain implementations into supporting a specific profile, they will be compatible with the Profile that will be specified by the RTCWeb Working Group.
As the name implies, WebRTC 1.0: Real-time Communication Between Browsers is to be considered as a first version of APIs for real-time communication. The working group will, once WebRTC 1.0: Real-time Communication Between Browsers reaches Candidate Recommendation, consider working on a new set of low level object-oriented APIs for real-time communication. The activities in the ORTC (Object Real-time Communications) Community Group indicate that there is interest in a new set of APIs. As part of this consideration, the group will reevaluate its deliverables and milestones, and may reconsider its scope. The specified API Functions and the requirements on their implementation must offer functionality that ensures that users' expectations of privacy and control over their devices are met - this includes, but is not limited to, ensuring that users can control what local devices an application can access for capturing media, and are able to at any time revoke that access.
Similarly, all the deliverables must address issues of security - this includes, but is not limited to, ensuring that arbitrary UDP packets cannot be sent to arbitrary destinations and ports. security. The security and privacy goals and requirements will be developed in coordination with the IETF RTCWeb Working Group.
Similarly, all deliverables must address issues of accessibility including relevant requirements listed in the Media User Accessibility Requirements document (MAUR) , such as multiple well-synchronized instances of the same media type. The accessibility goals and requirements will be developed in coordination with the Accessible Platform Architectures Working Group .
A comprehensive test suite for all features of a specification is necessary to ensure the specification's robustness, consistency, and implementability, and to promote interoperability between User Agents. Therefore, each specification must have a companion test suite, which should be completed by the end of the Last Call phase, and must be completed, with an implementation report, before transition from Candidate Recommendation to Proposed Recommendation. Additional tests may be added to the test suite at any stage of the Recommendation track, and the maintenance of a implementation report is encouraged.
In particular, since WebRTC deals with browser-to-browser communications, specific attention will be brought to the interoperability testing of the WebRTC API implementations.
Other non-normative documents may be created such as:
Given sufficient resources, this Working Group should review other working groups' deliverables that are identified as being relevant to the Working Group's mission.
| Note: The group will document significant changes from this initial schedule on the group home page . | |||||
| Specification | FPWD | CR | PR | Rec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Media Capture and Streams | 2011-10-27 | Q2 2015 | Q1 2016 | Q2 2016 | |
| WebRTC 1.0: Real-time Communication Between Browsers | 2011-10-27 | Q4 2015 | Q4 2016 | Q1 2017 | |
| MediaStream Recording | 2013-02-25 | Q4 2015 | Q3 2016 | Q1 2017 | |
| MediaStream Image Capture | 2013-07-09 | Q2 2016 | Q2 2017 | Q3 2017 | |
| Media Capture Depth Stream Extensions | 2014-10-07 | Q2 2016 | Q2 2017 | Q3 2017 | |
| Identifiers for WebRTC's Statistics API | 2014-10-21 | Q4 2015 | Q4 2016 | Q1 2017 | |
| Media Capture from DOM Elements | Q1 2015 | Q4 2015 | Q3 2016 | Q4 2016 | |
| Audio output API | Q1 2015 | Q3 2015 | Q2 2016 | Q3 2016 | |
| Screen Capture API | Q1 2015 | Q4 2015 | Q3 2016 | Q4 2016 | |
<audio>
and
<video>
elements
To be successful, the Web Real-Time Communications Working Group is expected to have 10 or more active participants for its duration. Effective participation to Web Real-Time Communications Working Group is expected to consume one work day per week for each participant; two days per week for editors. The Web Real-Time Communications Working Group will allocate also the necessary resources for building Test Suites for each specification.
Participants are reminded of the Good Standing requirements of the W3C Process.
This group primarily conducts its work on the public mailing list public-webrtc@w3.org ( archives ).
The group uses a Member-confidential mailing list for administrative purposes and, at the discretion of the Chairs and participants of the group, for Member-only discussions in special cases when a particular participant requests such a discussion.
Information about the group (deliverables, participants, face-to-face meetings, teleconferences, etc.) is available from the Web Real-Time Communications Working Group home page .
As explained in the Process Document ( section 3.3 ), this group will seek to make decisions when there is consensus. When the Chair puts a question and observes dissent, after due consideration of different opinions, the Chair should record a decision (possibly after a formal vote) and any objections, and move on.
Editors are responsible for reflecting the consensus from the Working Group in the specifications; where editors bring technical solutions in the specifications that have not been reviewed by the group, these solutions are annotated to reflect their status.
Contributors are encouraged to bring specific modifications (e.g. as patches) to the group's specifications to facilitate their review by the group and eventual integration by the editors.
This Working Group operates under the W3C Patent Policy (5 February 2004 Version). To promote the widest adoption of Web standards, W3C seeks to issue Recommendations that can be implemented, according to this policy, on a Royalty-Free basis.
For more information about disclosure obligations for this group, please see the W3C Patent Policy Implementation .
This charter for the Web Real-Time Communications Working Group has been created according to section 6.2 of the Process Document . In the event of a conflict between this document or the provisions of any charter and the W3C Process, the W3C Process shall take precedence.
This charter updates and replaces the first WebRTC Working Group charter approved in 2011.
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