Transition Request: HTML5 as Candidate Recommendation

Document title: HTML5

Document URI: http://htmlwg.org/cr/html/

Estimated publication date: December 13, 2012

Abstract:

This specification defines the 5th major revision of the core language of the World Wide Web: the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). In this version, new features are introduced to help Web application authors, new elements are introduced based on research into prevailing authoring practices, and special attention has been given to defining clear conformance criteria for user agents in an effort to improve interoperability.

Status:

For this specification to exit the CR stage, the conditions detailed in the CR Exit Criteria (Public Permissive version 3) document will have to be met.

This document was published by the HTML Working Group as a Candidate Recommendation. This document is intended to become a W3C Recommendation. W3C publishes a Candidate Recommendation to indicate that the document is believed to be stable and to encourage implementation by the developer community. This Candidate Recommendation is expected to advance to Proposed Recommendation no earlier than 01 September 2014. All feedback is welcome.

Record of the decision to request the transition:

2012-11-27 message from Sam Ruby announcing a WG decision to request transition to CR.

Report of important changes to the document

Two detailed lists of changes made to the specification since the start of Last Call on May 25, 2011 are available:

1. Changes from 25 May 2011 to 29 March 2012
2. Changes from 29 March 2012 to 5 October 2012

The most significant changes include:

• the addition of the data element, to provide a means to mark up data in way to make it usable both as machine-readable data for the purposes of data processors, and as human-readable information for the purposes of rendering in a Web browser
• a redesigned time element
• the addition of a global translate attribute (to specify whether an element's attribute and contents are to be translated when the document is localized, or whether to leave them unchanged)
• the addition of a crossorigin attribute for the img, video, and audio elements, to allow authors to control how cross-origin resource-sharing checks are performed on those particular media

None of the changes made since the May 25, 2011 start of Last Call are considered to have the effect of completely invalidating any previous review of the specification.

Evidence that the document satisfies group's requirements

The requirements have not changed since the previous transition. All requirements previously satisfied remain satisfied.

Evidence that dependencies with other groups met (or not)

The specification has a number of normative references to W3C specifications that are not yet Candidate Recommendations.

The HTML Working Group chairs and team contacts are confident that they do not have any dependencies with other working groups that have not been satisfied. The HTML WG published a public Plan 2014 document that among other things outlines its plans with regard relationships with other key groups, and also announced that plan to the chairs@w3.org mailing list, without receiving objections to the plan from other any working groups

Evidence that the document has received wide review

The specification has been very widely reviewed both by public commenters, by other W3C working groups, and by key participants involved in work at other organizations such as the IETF. A Disposition of Comments document is available, as well as a list of open issues and related change proposals that are awaiting working-group decisions.

W3C groups that submitted comments include (but are not limited to) the W3C TAG, CSS WG, Internationalization WG, MultilingualWeb-LT WG, Protocols and Formats WG, Responsive Images Community Group, Web and TV IG, and XML Core WG.

Evidence that issues have been formally addressed

A Disposition of Comments document is available, as well as a list of open issues and related change proposals that are awaiting working-group decisions.

• The Group received 1533 formal Last Call comments (bug reports) during the Last Call comment period that ran from May 25, 2011 to August 03, 2012.
• Of the 1533 Last Call comments, 594 (39%) were accepted, and 939 (61%) were rejected.

Among the rejected comments, 22 were escalated into issues requiring a decision by the Working Group. The Group made a decision for 12 of them. The remaining issues will be moved to extension specifications, as part of HTML WG Plan 2014.

Objections

There are currently three formal objections outstanding against the HTML5 specification:

• one objection to the decision by the working group to not add any explicit means for others to define custom elements and attributes within HTML markup
• one objection to the decision by the working group to reference a copy of the DOM Parsing and Serialization specification maintained at the W3C rather than referencing the original specification maintained outside of the W3C
• one objection to the text that explained how to translate input strings contained in text/html documents into URIs

Implementation Information

The following sections provide details about implementation information.

CR exit criteria

For this specification to exit the CR stage, the conditions detailed in the CR Exit Criteria (Public Permissive version 3) document will have to be met.

Preliminary implementation report

A preliminary implementation report is available.

CR duration period

The minimal duration for this CR period is until September 1, 2014.

Features at risk

Patent Disclosures

None