As part of a series of interviews with W3C Members to learn moreabout their support for standards and participation in W3C, <ahref="http://www.w3.org/People/LeHegaret/">I'm talking to Paul Cotton from Microsoft and co-Chair of the W3C HTML Working Group.
First, let me thank you personally on becoming a co-chair of the W3CHTML Working Group. I am very happy with Microsoft's commitment to the HTMLWorking Group and to HTML 5. Microsoft is collaborating very actively, andhelping drive consensus around many HTML 5 proposals related to Canvas,Accessibility and Extensibility.
Q. Microsoft participates in a large number (~30) of W3C WorkingGroups and has shown this level of commitment for many years. You sent 12people to the November 2009 HTML Working Group face-to-face meeting, anunusually high number of people from a single company for a face-to-facemeeting. Why is Microsoft investing so heavily in the W3C HTML 5 effort?
A. Thank you Philippe, I really appreciate your comments.
It’s true, Microsoft has been working with the W3C since the1990’s, and has held a number of leadership positions as well as having agreat many individual contributors engaged with a variety of different W3Cworking groups. Over the last decade, since HTML4 was made a W3C Recommendationthe Web has grown immensely. It’s also gone from a fairly static,document centric place to being the rich, interactive, transactional andreal-time place it is today. HTML forms the backbone of interoperability on theWeb, and as the next revision of the specification begins to take shape,Microsoft plans to contribute the necessary resources and expertise to help theW3C ensure a thoughtful, comprehensive, backwards-compatible, and testablespecification is put forward as a new W3C Recommendation. W3C and Microsoftunderstand that the Web is no longer the domain of just academics, governments,and computer scientists, but that it is today a vital service relied upon byregular people around the world as well as enterprises. It is a vital part ofeveryday life, and must be treated with the utmost care.
Because of this, Microsoft has allocated software engineers, test developersand program managers to assist the W3C with the work ahead. Microsoft has avast breadth and depth of experience in the challenges of supporting such avast, dynamic ecosystem – after all, over a billion people rely on thesafety, security, and compatibility of our operating systems today. We’velearned a lot of lessons – sometimes the hard way – about how tobuild resiliency and interoperability into our operating systems. We want tobring this expertise to the W3C to help with the challenge of revising theunderpinnings of the Web.
Since August 2009 when I became a co-chair of the W3C HTML Working Group Ihave been trying to use my more than 10 years of W3C experience to helpprogress long standing issues on the specification, to define a testinginfrastructure, and to push for more work in important areas that had not yetreceived enough attention – like accessibility.
Q. There is considerable confusion about what HTML 5 is: People usethe term HTML 5 to refer not only to the work of the HTML Working Group, butalso to work being done in other W3C working groups or even referring totechnologies that are not being standardized. As co-Chair of the HTML WorkingGroup, can you talk about what the group expects to be part of HTML 5 and howit relates to the work of other Working Groups?
A. I agree that many of us use the term “HTML 5” veryloosely.
First, I believe that most people use the term “HTML 5” to referto the
HTML 5 specification currentlybeing worked on by the
HTML WG. TheHTML 5 specification defines the syntax and the semantics of the elements andattributes in the HTML markup language and several of the APIs that are used toprocess HTML documents. Recently the HTML WG has started to break the HTML 5specification into more modular and separate Working Drafts e.g. <ahref="http://www.w3.org/TR/rdfa-in-html/">HTML+RDFa, <ahref="http://www.w3.org/TR/microdata/">HTML Microdata, and <ahref="http://www.w3.org/TR/2dcontext/">HTML Canvas 2D Context. The HTML WGis also publishing two additional documents to aid users of HTML 5: the <ahref="http://www.w3.org/TR/html5-diff/">HTML 5 differences from HTML4specification and
HTML: The MarkupLanguage which is aimed at developers that produce HTML 5 output.
Each of these additional Working Drafts are still part of“HTML 5” and are all on track to become separate but related W3CRecommendations or Working Group Notes. I believe that the content of these WDstaken together will define the part of “HTML 5” being worked on bythe HTML WG.
But I believe that some use the term “HTML 5” to refer also tothe important related <ahref="http://www.w3.org/2008/webapps/charter/webapps-deliverables.html">APIspecifications being worked on by the <ahref="http://www.w3.org/2008/webapps/">WebApps WG. The WebApps WG ischartered to create client-side APIs that can be used with the HTML markuplanguage – in fact some of its specifications started as part of theHTML 5 specification but were migrated over to be separate modularspecifications managed by the WebApps WG. In addition there are some veryinteresting APIs under development by the <ahref="http://www.w3.org/2009/dap/">Device APIs and Policy Working Groupwhich are related to HTML 5 since they can be used with the HTML language and inuser agents.
Others use the term “HTML 5” to also include the <ahref="http://wiki.ecmascript.org/doku.php?id=es3.1:es3.1_proposal_working_draft">EC MAScript-262Language which defines the programming language that we use today to builddynamic web applications.
Q. There is a considerable amount of work is still required beforeHTML 5 is finalized. There has been a lot of excitement in web developmentcircles about HTML 5, and a lot of misconception about the status of thespecification. Can you explain exactly where you see the current status of theHTML 5 specifications and the process being organized by the 3 co-chairs of theHTML Working Group to drive HTML 5 to completion?
A. The HTML 5 specifications being worked on by the HTML WG are all at the <ahref="http://www.w3.org/2005/10/Process-20051014/tr.html#RecsWD">W3CWorking Draft stage. This means that the material is not final and is stillbeing worked on by the HTML WG.
In order to get the WG’s specifications to the <ahref="http://www.w3.org/2005/10/Process-20051014/tr.html#last-call">W3CLast Call stage the WG needs to resolve all the known comments andissues with the Working Drafts and make WDs functionally complete. Inorder to do this the WG co-chairs have helped the WG come to consensuson a <ahref="http://dev.w3.org/html5/decision-policy/decision-policy.html">decisionpolicy for outstanding issues. The WG is now using and evolvingthis policy. The <ahref="http://dev.w3.org/html5/status/issue-status.html">current statusof issues before the WG is available.
Q. Where can we find the latest information on the current status ofHTML 5 and the list of open issues of the HTML Working Group?
A. The HTML WG encourages comments and input on the WG’s Working Drafts.The WG processes comments by using a <ahref="http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/">Bugzilla entry for each separatecomment. There is a Bugzilla “component” for each of the HTML WGspecifications, for example, comments related to the main HTML 5 specificationcan be entered via the <ahref="http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/buglist.cgi?query_format=advanced&short_desc_type= allwordssubstr&short_desc=&product=HTML+WG&compone nt=HTML5+spec+bugs&long_desc_type=allwordssubstr&l ong_desc=&bug_file_loc_type=allwordssubstr&bug_fil e_loc=&status_whiteboard_type=allwordssubstr&statu s_whiteboard=&keywords_type=allwords&keywords=&bug _status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENE D&emailtype1=substring&email1=&emailtype2=substrin g&email2=&bugidtype=include&bug_id=&votes=&chfield from=&chfieldto=Now&chfieldvalue=&cmdtype=doit&ord er=Reuse+same+sort+as+last+time&field0-0-0=noop&type0-0-0=noop&value0-0-0=">“HTML 5spec bugs” component. Anyone can <ahref="http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/query.cgi">search the Bugzillacomponents for the HTML WG to see which bugs have been for example been CLOSEDor which are still OPEN. And as indicated above the <ahref="http://dev.w3.org/html5/status/issue-status.html">status of the issues beforethe HTML WG is available.
The
current HTML WG working drafts and other HTML-related working drafts are available.
Q. Can you talk about the Working Group's perspective on the role oftesting in the standards process?
A. Last fall the HTML WG agreed to create two separate taskforces: one on Testing and a second on Accessibility. The <ahref="http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2009Sep/0687.html">TestingTask Force’s mandate is to setup the infrastructure and atest suite for the HTML WG’s specifications. The task force islead by Kris Krueger from Microsoft. The <ahref="http://www.w3.org/html/wg/wiki/Testing">Testing TaskForce’s Wiki pages are available.
When the WG has processed all Last Call stage comments the HTML WGspecifications will move on to the <ahref="http://www.w3.org/2005/10/Process-20051014/tr.html#RecsCR">W3CCandidate Recommendation stage when the W3C does a “Call forImplementations” for the specifications. The idea behindstarting the Testing Task Force so much in advance of getting to theCR stage is to build as much of the required test suite as possibleBEFORE the WG’s specifications gets to CR. By doing this thetime spent in the CR stage should be minimized. In addition bycreating tests for the specifications as early as possible these testscan then be used to assist in improving the quality of the HTML 5specifications even before the Last Call or Candidate Recommendationstages.
Having a comprehensive test suite for all the HTML 5 specification issomething that Microsoft thinks is very important. Microsoft is committed tosubmitting test cases for HTML 5 features and to reviewing test cases submittedby other task force members.
Q. Although HTML 5 has not been finalized, can you talk about whatparts of HTML 5 IE8 supports?
A. IE8 implemented some features from the <ahref="http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/WD-html5-20090212/">W3C HTML 5 WorkingDraft (<ahref="http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/WD-html5-20090212/browsers.html#handler-window-onhashchange">AJAXNavigation, <ahref="http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/WD-html5-20090212/offline.html#browser-state">NetworkConnectivity Events), from the <ahref="http://www.w3.org/2008/webapps/">W3C Web Applications specifications(<ahref="http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/WD-html5-20090212/structured-client-side-storage.html#storage">DOMStorage, <ahref="http://www.w3.org/TR/cors/#access-control-allow-origin-response-hea">CrossDomain Request and <ahref="http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/WD-html5-20090212/comms.html#crossDocumentMessages">CrossDocument Messaging), from the <ahref="http://wiki.ecmascript.org/doku.php?id=es3.1:es3.1_proposal_working_draft">EC MAScript-262Language specification (Native JSON Support) and <ahref="http://www.w3.org/TR/selectors-api/">CSS Selectors and Mutable DOMPrototypes. A <ahref="http://blogs.msdn.com/giorgio/archive/2009/11/29/ie8-and-html-5.aspx">good overview of these functionalities is available.
Q. Can we expect even more support for HTML 5 in IE 9?
A. Watch this space. As you can see, Microsoft is investing veryheavily in the W3C HTML 5 effort, working with our competitors and the webcommunity at large. We want to implement ratified, thoroughly tested, andstable standards that can widely help interoperability of the Web. We will havemore to say on the subject at the
MIXconference.
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Interview: Paul Cotton on Microsoft Participation in the W3C HTML Working Group
