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<title>HTML5.1: Candidate Recommendation (CR) exit criteria</title>

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<h1>HTML 5.1: Candidate Recommendation (CR) exit criteria</h1>
<nav aria-label="Content">
<ol id="mozToc">
<li><a href="#background">Background: Process Requirements</a></li>
<li><a href="#requirements">Meeting our requirements</a></li>
<li><a href="#review">Wide review</a></li>
<li><a href="#implementation">Implementation experience</a></li>
<li><a href="#inandout">Entering and exiting CR</a></li>
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<h2 id="background">Background: Process Requirements</h2>
<p>According to the <a href="https://www.w3.org/2015/Process-20150901">W3C Process</a>, as part of the approval process for a
specification to enter Candidate Recommendation (PR), the Working Group must:</p>
<ol>
<li>Show that the specification has met all Working Group requirements, or explain why the requirements have changed or been deferred
</li>
<li>Explain how the group proposes to demonstrate broad implementation experience.</li>
<li>Show the document has received wide review.</li>
</ol>
<p>The review period for CR <q><em class="rfc2119">must</em> be <strong>at least</strong> four weeks after publication, and <em class="rfc2119">should</em>
be longer for complex documents</q></p>
Similarly, for a specification to advance from Candidate Recommendation to Proposed Recommendation (PR), the Working Group must show:
<ol>
<li>
<p>Adequate implementation experience, described as </p>
<blockquote> the specification is sufficiently clear, complete, and relevant to market needs, to ensure that independent
interoperable implementations of each feature of the specification will be realized<br>
<cite><a href="https://www.w3.org/2015/Process-20150901/#implementation-experience">https://www.w3.org/2015/Process-20150901/#implementation-experience</a></cite></blockquote>
</li>
<li>The document has received wide review.</li>
</ol>
<p> The deadline for Advisory Committee review of a Proposed Recommendation <q><em class="rfc2119">must</em> be <strong>at least</strong>
28 days after the publication of the Proposed Recommendation and <em class="rfc2119">should</em> be at least 10 days after the end
of the last Exclusion Opportunity</q>.</p>
<p>HTML 5.0 has already been accepted by the W3C Director as meeting these requirements.</p>
<h2 id="requirements">Meeting our requirements</h2>
<p>There is not a formal requirements document for HTML 5.1. HTML is an extremely widely implemented and widely-used technology, and we
consider the requirements for this group to be documenting what is interoperable among the things considered "HTML" to enable
implementers of user agents, developers of content creation and management tools, and producers of Web content to implement and use
HTML interoperably with confidence.</p>
<p>HTML has continued to develop over the last 25 years, and we expect that process to continue. Therefore, rather than finishing "the
HTML specification" we take as our task to regularly produce a W3C Recommendation that achieves the goal of documenting HTML more
accurately and usefully than its predecessor, taking into account both changes in HTML and where possible improving the quality of the
documentation itself.</p>
<h2 id="review">Wide review</h2>
<p>The HTML 5 specification is perhaps the most widely reviewed product of W3C. We believe that the implementation in software, and
concomitant use, generally constitutes sufficient review. </p>
<p>We also publicise changes to the specification, and produce drafts with changelogs enabling the general public to understand the
changes.</p>
<p>Finally, while it does not apply to all changes, a substantial proportion of the changes made to HTML5 have either been copied from,
or independently reviewed by WHATWG, effectively ensuring that two independent groups working on defining the fundamentals of the Web
Platform have at least considered them.</p>
<h2 id="implementation">Implementation experience</h2>
<p>Since HTML 5.0 has been accepted as showing implementation experience, we propose that no substantive changes that add features or
requirements will be accepted unless they are&nbsp; implemented interoperably by at least 2 independent shipping products. Similarly,
if a feature in the specification is identified as not having at least two interoperable shipping implementations</p>
<p>There is no requirement that all features must be implemented by a single product. </p>
<p>For the purposes of this criterion, we define the following terms: </p>
<dl>
<dt>Independent</dt>
<dd>Each feature or requirement implementation must be <em>developed</em> by a different party, and shipped as part of a different
product. In particular, two products that re-use the same codebase to implement a particular feature or requirement will not be
considered independent.</dd>
<dt>Interoperably</dt>
<dd>Features coded according to the specification must work "the same way" in different implementations. A test or test suite may be
used to demonstrate this.</dd>
<dt>Shipping product</dt>
<dd>One which:</dd>
</dl>
<ol>
<li>Implements the relevant conformance class of the specification, typically "web browsers and other interactive user agents" .</li>
<li>Is available to the general public. The implementation may be a shipping product or other publicly available version (for example
a beta version, preview release or nightly build), endorsed by those who produced it as sufficiently stable.</li>
<li>Is intended for general public use, i.e. is not an experimental demonstration.</li>
</ol>
<h2 id="inandout">Entering and exiting CR</h2>
<p>If the group meets these requirements for changes made to the specification, we believe that to enter Candidate Recommendation we
will specifically need to show a group decision that the current Working Draft for HTML 5.1 is a notable improvement on the HTML 5.0
Recommendation, has received sufficient review of changes, and is therefore ready to be proposed as a Recommendation.</p>
<p>Given the implementation-driven model for changes, that much of HTML 5 has already been reviewed before we began the work, and that
major features have been widely reviewed and implemented, the formal review period will be four weeks.</p>
<p>To exit Candidate Recommendation, we believe that we will similarly need to address comments received during the CR period, and the
Working Group reach a decision that it has indeed met its working criteria, and addressed comments raised as per the Process.</p>
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