“Challenges remain”, but HTML WG confident on hitting 2014 completion date
The HTML Working Group, on request from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), has announced an official plan to move the HTML5 spec to ‘Candidate Recommendation’ (CR) by 2014.
‘Candidate Recommendation’, in other words, is a complete, finalised standard. HTML WG “sought to produce a plan that achieves this date and has minimal risk of delays from unexpected events”, according to the report.
Assuming the plan works out, the fourth quarter of 2014 will be the completion time for HTML5. Yet a follow-up, HTML 5.1, is planned to be rolled out for the end of 2016.
Hello HTML 5.1, meet HTML 5.0
The most interesting facet of this announcement is the explanation for why HTML 5.1 is needed.
In essence, the way HTML WG and W3C will get HTML5 on target is by pushing all the “unstable” features – the stuff which doesn’t make the ‘Public Permissive’ CR exit criteria – into another draft, HTML 5.1, along with other new potential features.
This will theoretically carry on into HTML 5.2, HTML 5.3 and so on.
While it may seem like a way of passing the buck, the benefit will become apparent. It will strengthen and stabilise the “stable” draft, and will in time make the entire CR process quicker.
Candidate Recommendation for HTML 5.0 will commence in October with the creation of a draft implementation report, filtering out the “controversial” or “unstable” material.
“At first, [the draft] may be based more on qualitative assessments of features than on quantitative assessments,” the report notes.
“But as we get more test cases into the W3C Testing Framework, we will be able to collect more quantitative data on features, and evolve it into a much more quantitative assessment of all features in the specification,” it adds.
CR is an important deal, if only for the fact that the spec will be covered by W3C’s patent policy – in other words, making sure HTML5 remains royalty-free.
A brief recap on W3C
The developments of HTML5 over the past few months have been widely reported. Back in July, the W3C appointed four editors for their side of the spec to ease workflow, with W3C’s Ian Jacobs telling DeveloperTech at the time: “We have a lot of work to do. The more we can invest in the work of the HTML Working Group, the faster we can go”.
The two groups chiefly responsible for the implementation of HTML5, the W3C and the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG) had earlier announced that they were pursuing the standard in different ways.
The W3C will create static snapshots of the spec, whilst the WHATWG is pursuing the ‘living standard’.
According to MoSync’s Ali Sarrafi, who is involved in HTML5 and JavaScript frameworks with the company, current doubts can be put down to the consortium not finalising the standard.
“In my personal view the W3C is too slow,” he said, adding: “And that’s why we have all this scepticism about HTML5 – it’s slow, it doesn’t work, the browsers are fragmented – because W3C hasn’t finalised the standard yet”.
And in terms of the two organisations pursuing the standard in a different format, Sarrafi insisted it wasn’t a big deal, and that the potential was there for the two organisations to co-align again.
“We get this very stable HTML5 standard in a couple of years by the W3C,” he said, adding: “If we get that, then some of the work for the next version has already been done. Mozilla, Opera, Apple, and any other who’s working with the browsers will probably be implementing this stuff that WHATWG is working on as well.
“At the end, they may just merge it again – that’s my personal view.”
But do you agree with the way the standard is being pursued at the moment? Do you think the implementation of HTML 5.1, 5.2 et al will be ad infinitum, as well as shortening the time between standards?
