Math Working Group Charter

Scope

Background and Motivation

MathML is a markup language for encoding and communicating mathematics.The need for mathematical rendering on the web was evident from the earliest days of the Web at CERN, and MathML was among the first specifications taken up and developed by the W3C in the mid to late 1990's XML/XHTML era. It received much attention and has created a vibrant ecosystem of implementations and integration outside of web browsers. It advanced on the Web itself becoming integrated, along with SVG, into the HTML Parser and the HTML Specification in the mid 2000's. Since then, much has happened. While MathML has much success with making math accessible and has had wide adoption in the tools used to generate and consume math, browser adoption is not universal. The MathML 3 specification does not match some current Web realities; it does not contain precise enough requirements for interoperability with the now changed Web Platform; indeed, some features are either incompatible with, or subsumed by, new features added to the Web Platform outside MathML.

Scope

The MathML Refresh Community Group (CG) was formed to begin revision of MathML to address perceived difficulties in the MathML 3 spec. The Math Working Group will advance, refine, and clarify the work begun by the MathML Refresh Community Group and ensure MathML’s relevance continues to evolve, grow and improve. In particular, there are three goals the Math WG will work toward:

• Wide adoption by browsers of a core set of presentational elements so that authors can be assured that mathematics will be displayed similarly in all browsers, without having to rely on external libraries to do the display.
• Increased accessibility of Presentation MathML for both mathematics and chemical formulas achieved by allowing a means of specifying relevant mathematical intent, as well as by providing guidelines for interpreting Presentation MathML in the absence of additional information.
• Ensuring that mathematical formulations are better searchable.

The Working Group will begin by providing a thorough review and refinement of MathML Core Level 1, a restricted form of MathML created by the MathML Refresh Community Group, which has done the initial hard work of largely aligning with features of the current Web platform and precisely defining MathML's rendering, including integration with current CSS and basic DOM, and providing tests and opening bugs.

The Working Group will take up new work, such as problems the CG identified as requiring better solutions in order to move MathML in the Web Platform forward, in proposing a MathML Core Level 2.

The Working Group will also overhaul MathML 3 by building upon these fundamentals and experience with needs for accessibility, and on many years of practical experience and use (or lack thereof), to create a path forward to a MathML 4.

The scope of the Math Working Group includes the following:

• Development of Recommendations as outlined above.
• Development of a test suite to check conformance of implementations.
• Clarifications to the current use of Web Platform technologies, such as supported JavaScript APIs and CSS modules.
• Enhancements and improvements to internationalization.
• Continued integration of errata and bug fixes.
• Integration of new and existing Web Platform technologies, including, but not limited to:
  • Hyperlinks
  • DOM APIs
  • Shadow DOM and Custom Elements
• Integration with tools above and beyond browsers.
• Improvements to the MathML markup and processing model to enhance accessibility and searchability.
• Identification of normative requirements needed to ensure accessibility.
• Removing elements and attributes from MathML that have had minimal adoption.

Out of Scope

• Changes that would cause legacy MathML that has significant usage to stop working on the Web Platform or elsewhere.
• Significant changes to Content MathML. These will be considered at a later time after gaining experience and feedback from proposed additions to enhance accessibility and searchability in Presentation MathML.