W3C: HTML 5.0 available at the end of 2014, 5.1 in 2016

A W3C road map has been published with the final specifications of HTML 5.0 being scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2014. HTML 5.1 should be released in 2016.

While web browsers are already integrating support for HTML5, the specifications haven’t yet been finalized. The W3C consortium has already announced that they will have the standards finalised in 2014. In a road map picked up by Ars Technica which is still to be validated, the publication period is more precise.

It appears that HTML 5.0 will be finalised in the fourth quarter of 2014. By the end of that year, a HTML 5.0 Candidate Recommendation - a pre-version – will integrate only the functions that are specified as stable and implemented in the browsers.

The W3C has been working on HTML5 since 2007. This work started in 2004 under the guidance of the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group. Initially, it was planned that this would be released in... 2022.

The initial plans have changed since then, with the industry supporting HTML5. The schedule has been brought forward with users jumping on board the technology.

A draft of HTML 5.1 has also begun. It will include the HTML 5.0 Candidate Recommendation’s content, along with the unstable functions that have been excluded from this pre-version.

The HTML 5.1 Candidate Recommendation will be released in late 2014, when the final specifications of HTML 5.0 will be published. A HTML 5.2 draft will then appear straight after. Every two years from 2014 onwards, the final specifications of HTML 5.x should be published.

This publication rhythm should support the addition of new standardised technologies in a controlled environment, rather than in pieces as they are released.