Transition Request: WebDriver to Proposed Recommendation

This is an updated request from the Browser Testing and Tools Working Group
to transition the WebDriver spec to Proposed Recommendation.

This request is a follow-up to the initial request, which is archived at
https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2017Sep/0000.html, sent at
the beginning of September of last year.

This request aligns with decisions that came out of face-to-face discussions
at TPAC among the team and the group. In particular, it was recognized that at
the time the original request was made, we were lacking some details about test
results. So this updated request adds those details — which are as follows:

Complete results for all tests:

https://w3c.github.io/webdriver/results/html/all.html

Complete documentation on all current failures:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/13LGSCDf5o3xLj9RCWgDoK8pkCHECsGfnY34fYiK88JI/edit

With regard to those, the gist of it is that while we recognize we don’t
have 100% of the tests passing, we don’t consider any of the current test
failures to be major issues with the implementability of the spec — and
we are confident that they will be corrected in implementations in due time —
and we are more than satisfied that we have met our exit criteria with
regard to demonstrating solid implementation experience.

The original transition request follows — with the only change being
adjustment of the estimated publication date and to the information about
the number of resolved issues. There have have otherwise been no changes to
the spec that would invalidate prior reviews or that would otherwise affect
the transition request.

---------------

This is a request from the Browser Testing and Tools Working Group to
transition the WebDriver spec to Proposed Recommendation.

# Title: WebDriver
# URL: https://w3c.github.io/webdriver/webdriver-spec.html
# Estimated publication date: 29 March 2018

# Abstract
WebDriver is a remote control interface that enables introspection and
control of user agents. It provides a platform- and language-neutral wire
protocol as a way for out-of-process programs to remotely instruct the
behavior of web browsers.  Provided is a set of interfaces to discover and
manipulate DOM elements in web documents and to control the behavior of a
user agent. It is primarily intended to allow web authors to write tests
that automate a user agent from a separate controlling process, but may
also be used in such a way as to allow in-browser scripts to control a —
possibly separate — browser.  The standard forms part of the Web Testing
Activity that authors a larger set of tools commonly used for testing.

# Status
https://w3c.github.io/webdriver/webdriver-spec.html#status-of-this-document

# Link to group's decision to request transition
https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-browser-tools-testing/2017JulSep/0006.html

# Requirements satisfied
Only clarifications have been made on areas under specified.

The primary requirement for this document is to document the WebDriver wire
protocol and Actions API, as well as its standard Capabilities, Sessions model,
and navigation behavior, along with details such as command contexts, and
element interaction, as currently supported in multiple implementations.

The success of the specification in meeting its requirement is attested to
by existing widespread usage of WebDriver.

# Dependencies met (or not)
There are no dependencies which have not been satisfied.

The spec has normative dependencies on the following W3C Recs:

* Cascading Style Sheets Level 2 Revision 1 (CSS 2.1) (Rec)
* Page Visibility (Second Edition) (Rec)
* Pointer Events (Rec)
* Namespaces in XML 1.0 (Third Edition) (Rec)
* XML Path Language (XPath) Version 1.0 (Rec)

The spec has normative dependencies on the following W3C CRs:

* CSS Cascading and Inheritance Level 4 (CR)
* CSS Values and Units Module Level 3 (CR)
* Geometry Interfaces Module Level 1 (CR)

The spec has normative dependencies on the following W3C working drafts:

* Content Security Policy Level 3 (WD)
* CSS Device Adaptation Module Level 1 (WD)
* CSS basic box model (WD)
* CSS Display Module Level 3 (WD)
* CSS Object Model (CSSOM) (WD)
* CSSOM View Module (WD)
* DOM Parsing and Serialization (WD)
* HTML Editing APIs (WD)
* UI Events (WD)
* UI Events KeyboardEvent code Values (WD)
* UI Events KeyboardEvent key Values (WD)
* Web IDL (WD)

The spec has normative dependencies on the following WHATWG Living Standards:

* HTML (LS)
* DOM (LS)
* Fetch (LS)
* URL (LS)
* Fullscreen API (LS)
* Infra (LS)

The Browser Testing and Tools Working Group Working Group has responded to all
review feedback submitted by other groups, and all other groups remain satisfied
with the resolutions they have received for their comments.

# Wide Review
Evidence that the specification has received wide review is provided by the
record of discussions in the specification’s issue tracker:

https://github.com/w3c/webdriver/issues

# Issues addressed
The specification’s issue tracker contains a total of 324 resolved issues.
(There are 88 open/unresolved issues, but those are against v2 of the spec.)

# Formal Objections
None


-- 
Michael[tm] Smith https://people.w3.org/mike