Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group

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The Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group, or WHATWG, is a working group for developing new technologies designed to allow authors to write and deploy web applications more easily by extending existing Web technologies. While both the WHATWG and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) headed by Tim Berners-Lee are guided by invited members of various technology vendors, the process rules by which each organisation produces standards varies: while the W3C's process is open only to fee-paying members, the WHATWG's specification process is open to public scrutiny and input.

The key contributing groups in the WHATWG are Google, the Mozilla Foundation, Opera Software and Apple Inc.

1 History
2 Specifications
3 References
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] History

The WHATWG was formed in response to the slow development of web standards monitored by the W3C. The WHATWG mailing list was announced on 4 April 2004,^[1] two days after the initiatives of a joint Opera–Mozilla position paper had been voted down by the W3C members at the W3C Workshop on Web Applications and Compound Documents.^[2]

The working group, however, does not mean to override the W3C, as the standards proposals created by the WHATWG are submitted to the W3C for approval or amendment. The working group also intends to work more closely with the W3C in future.

[edit] Specifications

As of year 2006, 3 specifications are being drafted:

Web Forms 2.0, which is targeted to the common needs of web authors. A version of Web Forms 2 has also been published at the W3C. It is expected that Web Forms 2 will eventually be integrated with Web Applications 1.0.
Web Applications 1.0, also referred to as HTML5 within the WHATWG. This draft is in active development.
Web Controls 1.0, which is intended to add functionality to JavaScript and CSS that aid the creation of custom widgets. However, this will be influenced by the design of XBL2, and so will not be available in the near future.

These specifications, in contrast to W3C's XForms, are intended to work primarily on HTML, bringing what the supporters refer as "HTML5" (the specifications are also compatible with XHTML). This is different from W3C's movement toward standards intended for all XML languages.