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<h1 id="title">Declarative Formats for Applications and User Interfaces</h1>
<h2>W3C Working Group Note 12 September 2007</h2>
<dl>
  <dt>This version:</dt><dd><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/NOTE-dfaui-20070912/">http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/NOTE-dfaui-20070912/</a></dd>
  <dt>Latest version:</dt><dd><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/dfaui/">http://www.w3.org/TR/dfaui/</a></dd>
<dt>Editor:</dt>
  <dd>Arthur Barstow, Nokia</dd>
</dl>

<p class="copyright"><a href="http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/ipr-notice#Copyright">Copyright</a> &copy; 2007
<a href="http://www.w3.org/"><acronym title="World Wide Web Consortium">W3C</acronym></a><sup>&reg;</sup>
(<a href="http://www.csail.mit.edu/"><acronym title="Massachusetts Institute of Technology">MIT</acronym></a>,
<a href="http://www.ercim.org/"><acronym title="European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics">ERCIM</acronym></a>,
<a href="http://www.keio.ac.jp/">Keio</a>), All Rights Reserved. W3C <a href="http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/ipr-notice#Legal_Disclaimer">liability</a>,
<a href="http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/ipr-notice#W3C_Trademarks">trademark</a> and <a href="http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/copyright-documents">document
use</a> rules apply.</p>
<hr />
</div>

<h2 id="abstract">Abstract</h2>

<p>
The <a href="http://www.w3.org/2006/appformats/admin/charter">Charter</a> of the
<a href="http://www.w3.org/2006/appformats/">Web Application Formats Working Group</a>
includes a deliverable titled
<em>Specification of a declarative format for applications and user interfaces</em>.
This document includes the status of this deliverable and
a recommendation that the Working Group stop formal work on
this deliverable and consider this Note as the one and only
publication for this deliverable.
This Note also includes some potential options if W3C Members
choose to do related work.
</p>

<h2 id="sotd">Status of this document</h2>

<p><em>This section describes the status of this document at the time of its publication. Other documents may supersede this document. A list
of current W3C publications and the latest revision of this technical report can be found in the <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/">W3C
technical reports index</a> at http://www.w3.org/TR/.</em></p>

<p>This is a <a href="http://www.w3.org/2005/10/Process-20051014/tr#WGNote">W3C Working Group Note</a>
of the Declarative Formats for Applications and User Interfaces,
developed by the
<a href="http://www.w3.org/2006/appformats/">Web Application Formats Working Group</a>
as part of the <a href="http://www.w3.org/2006/rwc/Activity.html">Rich Web Clients Activity</a>.
</p>

<p>Please send comments about this document to <a href="mailto:public-appformats@w3.org">public-appformats@w3.org</a> (<a href="http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-appformats/">public archive</a>) with a subject that is prefaced with "<code>[dfaui]</code>".</p>

<p>Publication as a Working Group Note does not imply endorsement by the W3C Membership.
This is a draft document and may be updated, replaced or obsoleted by other documents at any time.
It is inappropriate to cite this document as other than work in progress.</p>

<p>This document was produced by a group operating under the <a href="http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Patent-Policy-20040205/">5 February 2004 W3C Patent Policy</a>. W3C maintains a <a rel="disclosure" href="http://www.w3.org/2004/01/pp-impl/38483/status">public list of any patent disclosures</a>
made in connection with the deliverables of the group; that page also includes instructions for disclosing a patent.
An individual who has actual knowledge of a patent which the individual believes contains
<a href="http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Patent-Policy-20040205/#def-essential">Essential Claim(s)</a>
must disclose the information in accordance with <a href="http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Patent-Policy-20040205/#sec-Disclosure">section 6 of the W3C Patent Policy</a>.</p>

<h2 id="toc">Table of Contents</h2>
<div class="toc">
<ul class="toc">
	<li class="tocline">1 <a href="#intro">Introduction</a></li>
	<li class="tocline">2 <a href="#status">Status</a></li>
	<li class="tocline">3 <a href="#recs">Recommendations</a></li>
	<li class="tocline">4 <a href="#refs">References</a></li>
</ul>
</div>

<h2 id="intro">1 Introduction</h2>
<p>
On 15 November 2005 the W3C announced the decision to start
the Web Application Formats (WAF) Working Group (WG). This WG's
<a href="http://www.w3.org/2006/appformats/admin/charter.html">Charter</a>
includes a deliverable named
<em>Specification of a declarative format for applications and user interfaces</em>
(called <em>DFAUI</em> in this document) and it is defined as follows:</p>

<dl><dd><em>
This deliverable should be based on an existing application/UI format, such as Mozilla's XUL, Microsoft's XAML, Macromedia's MXML or Laszlo Systems' LZX, provided the owners of the format are willing to contribute. The format should allow embedded program code. This format, combined with the deliverables below and existing technologies including XHTML, CSS, XForms, SVG and SMIL, should provide a strong basis for rich client application development.
</em></dd></dl>

<dl><dd><em>
Tentative milestones: First draft of requirements during October. First draft of specification during November. Candidate Recommendation 4th quarter of 2006.
</em></dd></dl>

<p>
This Note includes a recommendation that the Working Group
formally stop its work on this deliverable and consider this Note
as the one and only document the WG will publish for the DFAUI.
The document also includes the status of this deliverable
and some options if Members choose to do DFAUI-related work.
</p>


<h2 id="status">2 Status</h2>
<p>The WAF WG consists of individuals from approximately twenty
W3C Members plus two Invited Experts.
Two of the WG's members are explicitly identified in the group's
charter as potential contributors of a DFAUI base language
but neither of these members made significant contributions.
</p>

<p>The WG reviewed two inputs from its members:</p>
<ul>
  <li>Nexaweb's eXtensible Application Language <a href="#xal">[XAL]</a></li>
  <li>Telefonica's MyMobileWeb: Rendering Definition Language <a href="#mmw-rdl">[MMW-RDL]</a></li>
</ul>
<p>
The WG reviewed both of these inputs and created a draft
<em>DFAUI: Use Cases and Requirements</em>
document <a href="#dfaui-uc">[DFAUI-UC]</a> but the W3C never published the document.
</p>

<p>The DFAUI was an agenda item on all six of the WG's
face-to-face meetings that preceded the publication of this Note.
It was also an agenda item on all of the WG's weekly voice
conferences in 2006 and several of the group's 2007 voice conferences.
Despite the significant time allocated to the DFAUI,
progress on the deliverable was very slow,
particularly compared to the WG's other specifications in progress:
<a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/widgets-reqs/">Widgets 1.0 Requirements</a>,
<a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/widgets/">Widgets 1.0</a>,
<a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/access-control/">Read Access for Web Resources</a>,
<a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xbl/">XML Binding Language (XBL) 2.0</a>,
<a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xbl-primer/">XBL2 Primer</a>.
</p>

<p>
The slow progress on the DFAUI was first reported to the W3C's
<a href="http://www.w3.org/2006/11/hypertext-cg-charter">Hypertext Coordination Group</a>
in the WG's bi-weekly status report on
<a href="http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-html-cg/2006OctDec/0104.html">10 November 2006</a>
[Member-only].
The slow progress was first made Public via an e-mail from the Chair
to the WG's Public mail list on
<a href="http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-appformats/2006Nov/0059.html">15 November 2006</a>.
Additionally, Telefonica's
<a href="http://www.w3.org/2007/02/dmdwa-ws/talks/morfeo.pdf">MyMobileWeb project's position</a>
presentation at the W3C's June 2007 public
Declarative Models of Distributed Web Applications Workshop
includes some of the issues related to the DFAUI's slow progress.
</p>

<p>
For all practical purposes, worked on the DFAUI deliverable
stopped after the WG's April 2007 face-to-face meeting.
</p>

<p>
The primary reasons and factors that contributed to the slow progress on,
and low participation in the DFAUI are:
</p>
<ul>
<li>Insufficient resources - only two members of the WG actively contributed (via significant contributions) to the DFAUI work</li>

<li>Work on the DFAUI deliverable detracted from the WG's other specification work (see above) and this other work has active support and contributions from more WG members</li>

<li>Lack of key industry participants and stakeholders to pro-actively drive the DFAUI</li>

<li>Some members of the WG asserted the identified Use Cases and
Requirements can be addressed by existing open standards
(i.e. HTML4.01, CSS2.1, JavaScript, etc.) and/or by open standards
in progress (i.e. HTML5, CSS3, XBL2, etc.).
Other WG members asserted the existing specifications cannot meet some
of the Use Cases and Requirements</li>

<li>Most WG participants could not make a prolonged (i.e. multi-year)
resource commitment to create a new DFAUI language</li>
</ul>

<h2 id="recs">3 Recommendations</h2>
<dl><dd><em>
For the reasons provided above, it is the recommendation of the WG that
work on the DFAUI deliverable stop and that this Note serve as the one and
only publication for this deliverable.
</em></dd></dl>

<p>
The WG identifies the following options
to begin or re-start work on a declarative format for
applications and user interfaces or parts thereof:
</p>

<ul>
<li>Create a new DFAUI Working Group - after the development of open
source implementations of DFAUIs (such as XAL, MyMobileWeb, OpenLaszlo, etc.)</li>

<li>Create an Incubator Group - the group's focus is
use cases and requirements for a new DFAUI language.
The group could also identify the gaps in existing open standards
that need to be filled to address the use cases and requirements </li>

<li>Workshop on Open Standards Gaps for DFAUI - there appears
to be relatively broad interest in identifying the DFAUI open
standards gaps that are not addressed by existing standards
or standards in progress. A Workshop, co-hosted by at least the
WAF WG, HTML WG and the UWA WG, would focus on identifying the
gaps and how to address them (e.g. a new specification is
needed, the requirements should be addressed by a specification
in progress by an existing WG, etc.).</li>

<li>The Ubiquitous Web Application WG's
Device Independent Authoring Language (DIAL) could be extended to
address some of the identified Use Cases and Requirements</li>
</ul>

<h2 id="refs">4 References</h2>
<dl>
<!--
  <dt>[<a name="xal">XAL</a>]</dt>
  <dd><a href=""></a></dd>
-->

  <dt>[<a name="dfaui-uc">DFAUI-UC</a>]</dt>
  <dd><a href="http://dev.w3.org/cvsweb/2006/waf/DFAUI/DFAUI-UCs-and-Reqs.html">Declarative Format for Applications and User Interfaces: Use Cases and Requirements</a>,
  Coach Wei and Jose Manuel Cantera Fonseca [document never published by the W3C]</dd>

  <dt>[<a name="mmw-rdl">MMW-RDL</a>]</dt>
  <dd><a href="http://mymobileweb.morfeo-project.org/doc/eng/MyMobileWeb_LanguageReference.pdf">MyMobileWeb Rendering Definition Language</a>, Telefonica Investigacion y Desarrollo, S.A. </dd>

  <dt>[<a name="xal">XAL</a>]</dt>
  <dd><a href="http://dev.nexaweb.com/home/us.dev/index.html@cid=1784.html">XAL - eXtensible Application Language</a>,
  Coach Wei, Nexaweb Technologies Inc.</dd>


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