This Guidebook is the collected wisdom of the W3C Group Chairs and other collaborators.

This document provides details about joint deliverables between W3C Groups.

Joint deliverables between W3C Working Groups

As a general principle, each Working Group must follow its charter, including in the case of joint deliverables.

1. If one of the Working Groups decides to drop a joint deliverable from its charter, only the charters of the remaining Working Groups involved in that joint deliverable are applicable.

2. A Working Group cannot publish features on the W3C standard track that are outside of its scope. The scope of the narrower Working Group prevails in joint deliverables. As such, any feature which is out of scope for one of the Working Groups involved cannot appear in the joint deliverable.

3. Each Working Group is obligated to follow its Success criteria requirements. So the success criteria of the joint deliverable is the combination of the success criteria of all of the Working Groups involved.
   Any conflict between the success criteria sections ought to be resolved before the charters are approved.

4. Each Working Group must follow its decision policy. If conflicting decisions are recorded, the Working Groups need to resolved their differences.

   For example, all of the Working Groups must agree to publish a new revision of the joint deliverable in order for the publication of the joint deliverable to happen.

5. Each Working Group must follow its patent policy.
   Any conflict between the patent policy sections ought to be resolved before the charters are approved.

   As of 2023, all Working Groups are following the same version of the Patent Policy so no conflict can appear.

6. Each Working Group must follow its licensing requirements.
   Any conflict between the licensing sections ought to be resolved before the charters are approved.

Revision History

• 2023-09-14: Document created from #754.