HTML5: Up and Running

Back to the W3C

For several years, the W3C and the WHAT Working Group largely ignored each other. While the WHAT Working Group focused on web forms and new HTML features, the W3C HTML Working Group was busy with Version 2.0 of XHTML. But by October 2006, it was clear that the WHAT Working Group had picked up serious momentum, while XHTML 2 was still languishing in draft form, unimplemented by any major browser. In October 2006, Tim Berners-Lee, the founder of the W3C itself, announced that the W3C would work together with the WHAT Working Group to evolve HTML:

Some things are clearer with hindsight of several years. It is necessary to evolve HTML incrementally. The attempt to get the world to switch to XML, including quotes around attribute values and slashes in empty tags and namespaces all at once didn’t work. The large HTML-generating public did not move, largely because the browsers didn’t complain. Some large communities did shift and are enjoying the fruits of well-formed systems, but not all. It is important to maintain HTML incrementally, as well as continuing a transition to a well-formed world, and developing more power in that world.

The plan is to charter a completely new HTML group. Unlike the previous one, this one will be chartered to do incremental improvements to HTML, and also in parallel XHTML. It will have a different chair and staff contact. It will work on HTML and XHTML together. We have strong support for this group, from many people we have talked to, including browser makers.

There will also be work on forms. This is a complex area, as existing HTML forms and XForms are both form languages. HTML forms are ubiquitously deployed, and there are many implementations and users of XForms. Meanwhile, the Webforms submission has suggested sensible extensions to HTML forms. The plan is, informed by Webforms, to extend HTML forms.

One of the first things the newly rechartered W3C HTML Working Group decided was to rename “Web Applications 1.0” to “HTML5.” And here we are, diving into HTML5.